Just A Tangle of Words
by Tare-Bear
Summary: Fifty chapters of all Peeta and Katniss. A variation of love, lust, pain, and much more.
1. 01: Sacrifice

A/N: This is basically the same thing as my fifty sentences, but longer and more in depth. Each chapter is different from the last and is prompted by a random word from a list of fifty. This will alternate randomly between Katniss and Peeta POV and will be at random places or times during their lives. As for updates I don't have any particular schedule to it but I plan on one every so often. Thank you to everyone who reads it. I hope you enjoy. Sorry for typos. Reviews are love. -Taryn(:

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01: Sacrifice

"Katniss?"

"Peeta?"

There is silence. Around himself, he can hear the rain against the rock walls of the cave and he wonders what it would be like if they weren't in the arena. Would there be silence then? Part of him has the intense urge to take Katniss by the hand and pull her out in the rain so that he can just see her like that; wet hair dripping against her cheeks and neck, sticking to her lips, swollen from kissing, as her grey eyes gleam up at him, equal parts steely, and warm.

He thinks of before the arena, and how he would not of had the courage to do that then. Or that she would not have looked at him at all, let alone warmly. That fact makes him ache in his heart. Regret tastes bitter on his tongue as he lays there, pressed against her warmth. He can smell her hair, and it has this earthy scent to it, like dirt and a glade of damp grass, swaying in the breeze. To think that he might never smell that again, that he will have to let go of this piece of heaven, makes his hands itch to touch her, to allow his fingers to run through those sloppy, silky strands of black hair.

Without saying a word, Peeta shifts, so that the arm he has laying underneath Katniss' head as a pillow pivots a little, as to allow his fingertips to just barely touch her forehead. Against his chest, he feels her back muscles stiffen, and he pulls in a tight breath. He hesitates, his fingers going still, just barely skimming the hot skin of her forehead.

"It's okay," Katniss murmurs against the sleeping bag. She just gave him permission, but still Peeta feels some unknowable ache in his chest. Katniss accepts his touch. She willing will lay in his arms, and come back for him within the Hunger Games. So why does he feel like this is all a dream? Inside his head, he'll wake up soon, and he will be let down. But how could he be let down? All he had ever wanted was Katniss.

First, Peeta tries to remind himself that he'll have memories. He should savor this while he still can, without taking advantage. That's what he kept telling himself, when he knew he would go into this arena and die for her by joining the Careers.. but now, it seems different. Now, Katniss is saying that she has feelings, too.. or at least he thinks so. Also, they've been promised two slots for victory. It seems that after he saved her from Cato and she saved him from blood poisoning their affections are obvious. It's supposed to be them, it feels like. It was meant to be this way. And Peeta worries he's going to ruin it.

He feels like a little boy, when he draws only his thumb across the smooth skin of her forehead, until it reaches to the place where Clove cut her. He feels Katniss shudder. All he wants to do is take away her pain. Is that too much to ask for? Can't he just bear it instead? Peeta would do that for her; he would take the pain, the bad memories, the hunger she once felt, the loss of her father, any other pain or slight she might feel or hold onto. He doesn't know her enough to know what haunts her dreams, but he knows that if they ever get out of here, they'll soon share nightmares.

_Or will they? _Peeta finds himself questioning the future. In this little cave, inside their haven from other tributes and the sheets of gray precipitation blocking out the sight of the trees, it's easy to believe they'll be okay. The thought that they might make it, that it's just the two of them, all by themselves, is heavy in the humid air around them. Peeta can feel her every move within this musty, cold cave. So he feels safe. Everything is wrapped in a sense of untouchable contentment, quickly deterring his negative thoughts.

Carefully, his thumb traces underneath the cut on her forehead and runs downward, passed an eyebrow and along her temple. He wonders if she knows that even this simple acts makes his heart race. Just to feel her skin, to know that she's letting him touch her, it's enough. It is more than he ever thought to have.

"I always wanted to know why you wouldn't wear your hair out of a braid," he says, simply because there is silence to fill. He wants to feel her form relax against his and he hopes that he can use his words to calm her, or to let her know that he only means to savor this.. he only ever wants her to be comfortable. "Now I know why." Peeta turns his face a little, his lips and cheeks and closed eyelids brushing the hair at the back of Katniss' head, their ticklish strands dragging against his skin.

Katniss is stiff and unresponsive, at least, in body. In her words, Peeta tries to understand the emotion he detects there. "Habit, mostly," she answers him, as if he hadn't said he already knew. Her voice is weak, meek, not sharp. Peeta wonders if it is because she doesn't care for the topic, or because of the thumb he has pressed into the side of her cheek, or because she is tired and he is rudely keeping her awake. "I don't get to wash it much, so it helps keep it clean. Plus, it gets in the way if it's not tied back in some way."

That would make it easier to hunt, no doubt. Peeta recalls his earliest memory of Katniss, not for the first time in these Hunger Games; she is wearing her hair is two braids. Always, throughout the school years she'd worn it in a braid, and he had always wondered what it would look like without it, if she allowed herself to loosen up a bit, too. If Katniss knew what it was like to let her hair down and to let her guard down, he wondered if she would go out in the rain and dance in it with him.

However, not only the thought of being with her at her most vulnerable, her most pure, her most open, is appealing. What also plays into thought is an image of her that Peeta likes to hold onto. He tries to imagine her, not only open, but free and wild. There is something undeniably organic and exotic about Katniss, especially in her looks; her skin kissed deeply by the sun, but that is hard and thick, like tree bark, with hair as black as the shining wings of a bad tempered raven, her angular face and body, the curve of her lower lip, that makes Peeta long to trace it. And yet, while she is beautiful in her closed off way, with a scowl and steely eyes, Peeta pictures another side of her. A wild side, where she would dance in the rain with him, her cheeks flushed, lips parted to draw in exhilarated breaths, as she smiled at him, the silky, sloppy strands of black hair clinging to the angular sides of her face with rainwater.

That image of her drives him wild with lust and adoration. He knows he shouldn't, because maybe he's wrong. He does idolize her, and he knows it might not be all that good for his head or heart to love her just _so_ much, from every angle, but he can't help it.

"You should wear it down more," Peeta finally whispers back to her, to her neck, to her hair and he has a sudden urge to look her in the eyes. Could he somehow turn her toward him with the thumb he has against her cheek? Would that only disturb her rest more? He decides against it, because looking into her face makes him nervous and he knows that he'll just start to ramble underneath the pressure.

This conversation is full of long pauses, but they aren't awkward silences. Peeta wonders if she feels awkward. He feels comfortable, at his most relaxed, actually, yet at the same time the other pieces of him are cold in the night cave and his breath is forcibly calm, because the girl he has loved since he was five is laying right next to him. She has her freezing toes pressed determinedly into his calves, so that makes it hard to concentrate on the pain in his thigh. Does his thumb on her face hold the same effect? Is Katniss distracted from the pain of her cut by the finger he presses into her cheek? Peeta can only hope.

"Maybe," Katniss breathes, some minutes after Peeta's suggestion, as if she had to mull it over first.

Maybe is good. Maybe could mean a yes. "Okay."

"You can.." Katniss breaks off slightly, as if she lost her nerve. Peeta's heart does a slight flip when she takes a long, deep breath and her back fits more tightly against his chest. Her warmth seeps straight through his shirt and makes him feel weak in all nerves. "You can take it out, now, if you want," she finishes.

"Really?" he slips out before he can hold it back. He knows by now that Katniss usually always means what she says before she says it. The question is more derived from the shock at the thought of being allowed to do that. Years he spent imagining what that would be like, so being told he could do so.. so simply, makes him feel excited, and queasy.

Katniss voice is slightly humored, but still demure. "Really."

Peeta's other hand not on her face is hanging limply off his own hip, and carefully, hesitantly, he moves it upward beneath the sleeping bag. He tries not to touch her, to respect her personal space, but as his hand nears the end of her braid, tucked against the hollow of her throat, his fingers brush the hot skin of her collarbone and shoulder. He feels her upper body tighten, and he carefully tugs the end of the braid until it is loose enough to shift his fingers through the twists of the plait. Slowly, delicately, as not to pull at her hair, Peeta untangles the braid, making his way up toward the base of her skull.

He feels his heart in his throat, each pulse painful and warm, as his unintentionally deep exhales fan against the back of her neck. The thick, crimped length of Katniss' tresses fall away from each other to blanket his hand, thread between his fingers, and to fall heavily against the bicep Peeta has laid underneath her head. A strong, earthy smell floods his nose, intermixed with natural oils and the lingering acrid taste of smoke from the mines she used to blow up the Careers' supplies. Though she had washed herself and her hair in the stream not long ago, one or two pine needles are knotted into her dark locks, and a chip of a dead leaf. Carefully, Peeta brushes those stray pieces aside, and he feels Katniss shudder for the second time that night.

"Better already," Peeta mutters mutably, inhaling deeply, to draw in as much of the warm, human scent as he can. Sleeping like this is so much better than sleeping alone in the mud. Yet, he isn't quite sure he can sleep like this.. not with Katniss so close. It's different this night, because he feels the most awake he has in a long time, and his pain isn't enough to exhaust him. She, too, seems to be her best since she showed up in her own puddle of blood. They are both wide awake, and he knows he can't sleep because she's there and he wants to savor this, because who knows what tomorrow will bring. And what of her? Why can't she sleep?

Peeta runs his fingers through her hair to the very tips and that brings his hand down to her middle back. Katniss seems to arch away from his touch there. He tries to not let it upset him. To cover his sudden fears and insecurities, he speaks. "I keep thinking this won't last. Any moment Cato is going to come crashing into here and take you from me..." and maybe that's true. He can see it happening, but he knows he won't let it happen. He'll die before that happens. What is more realistic, he find himself realizing, is that someone else would take her away from him, and by someone else, he means the Capitol.

He wants to believe in the chance for two victors so much his head aches from his efforts of optimism. Everything inside of him wants to trust in the change of rules blindly, just as blindly as he would love to trust everyone, but he knows better. He knows what the Capitol is really like. Why would the odds give him the love of his life, now? What had he ever done to deserve it? Not to say he'd done anything bad before, but whatever he did do must have been extremely good, because it's managed to overthrow the Capitol's laws.

Memories won't be much if he's dead, so he finds himself thinking that he should savor everything in the _present_. He will savor his memory of her _now_, not later. He'll lay here and enjoy her closeness to his heart's content, while at the same time, replaying the last few days in his head until the memories threaten to drive him mad with loss.

"Peeta," Katniss says, haltingly. He likes it when she says his name. It reminds him that this is real. With the thumb he has against her cheek, he feels her facial muscles tightening, or twisting, he can't decipher just what. All he knows is that Katniss closes her eyes and her eyelashes whisk past his knuckles, causing _him_ to shudder. "I'm not going anywhere."

_No_, he thinks, _I won't let you go anywhere. I'll be the one who leaves, and I'm sorry. _He wonders if Katniss believes his feeble tries to make her believe in the rule change. Does she think she'll sacrifice herself in the event the rules do change back? If she does, Peeta hates that he'll disappoint her, because it's him who plans on sacrificing his place in this world for her.

Peeta feels the ache in his chest again. To have her with him, so close, is a torturous pleasure. He knows he can't keep her there, eerily. He knows that the last thing he'll think about before he dies for her victory, is her smell, and the feel of her toes on his leg, and the smoothness of her complexion underneath his fingers. And that image of her, too, will come to mind; wild, free, unguarded.

That's when he realizes he aches because he'll miss out. He won't get to see that picture of her, ever. The image will only ever be an image. It will be a piece of his imagination. It is something about Katniss that he will never see, or get to bring out of her. Maybe no one will ever try, and he'll be the only one who thought she could be like that. And he is saddened even more, because even Katniss deserves to feel errant for one moment. Overall, he just wants her to be happy. His throat tightens, as his eyes tingle sharply, and he just wants Katniss to realize he really does love her. He's not trying to hurt her by dying. Part of him wishes she never recuperated the feelings, so that he could die with the knowledge she isn't pained by it. The other half is extremely grateful for the fact that he got to tell her, and that he got these few moments.

He wants to tell her all this, but he doesn't want to scare her away, or for her to somehow stop him from sacrificing himself. So the cave is silent, as they lay there, wide awake, but not speaking. One of Peeta's hand is buried in her hair and the other still pressing a thumb into her cheek, stroking it every so often, just to feel the way her toes grip his calf in response, twisting slightly.

For a long time the stillness drags on, and Peeta's eyelids start to grow heavy. He wonders if Katniss is still awake, because he has not felt her move in such a long time. He doesn't want to wake her, if she's managing to capture rest, but still, he can't stop himself, as he whispers, "Katniss?"

Two heartbeats later, she whispers back, equally soft, "Peeta?"

There is silence, as both can't say the thoughts they are thinking, for both of them plot sacrifice, and neither is willing to relent, for though she can not admit it and he can not deny it, sometimes love makes you do crazy things.

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**_Coming up next is 02: Kiss_**


	2. 02: Kiss

A/N: I don't know if I mentioned it clearly last chapter but this is a story based off of one word prompts that I take randomly from a list of fifty words. Each chapter will loosely be related to the word that is posted at the beginning of each chapter. Again, I will alternate randomly from Katniss and Peeta. Not everything I write is accurate with all the books. Thanks for reading. I apologize for typos. Reviews are love. -Taryn(:

This one is honestly not my best. I'm admittedly not very good at fluff. This is me practicing.

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02: Kiss

She isn't hungry at all.

All she can think about is this morning, and that's the last thing she wants to think about. It is awkward and makes her skin itch and her stomach compact into a heavy ball of nerves. No. She _won't_ think about it. She just refuses to. Yet, still, she can not eat, so she pushes her plate away from herself, watching it teeter dangerously over the edge of the table. One more inch and it would have fallen to shatter across the kitchen floor. Doesn't matter. The food had no taste. Her stomach no longer felt hunger. She didn't need all that much food now that all she did was sleep.

Sleep, that sounds nice to her. All the time her body feels tired and useless, and sometimes she thinks her body has betrayed her. Or maybe she has deceived her own body, into thinking she is dead, or so near death, that it doesn't need to work properly. It can be days before her mind realizes she is hungry. Why was that? Is it just lazy? Maybe, it's because she feels like she's in a dark hole, a deep, endless pit of loss and grief and just like her thoughts, her mind can not escape the oppression. But sometimes it does, barely, weakly, with the help of Haymitch and Greasy Sae, her mind remembers what it needs to do, what her body needs to have in order to survive. And that's all she ever really wanted, was to survive. Katniss never said she wanted to thrive, or feel alive, or even _be alive_.

Katniss hunches forward until her head rests against her arms against the table top. She wants to feel different, but different wouldn't help, because she's not even feeling anything. Loss and grief, they are a special sort of emptiness. They are uncreative emotions that are neither a response, nor an action.. they are just missing something not there. An empty state and feeling that helps no one.

Peeta tells her all the time that it's okay to feel sad about what she lost, but it's an insult to their dead loved ones to refuse to live. Sometimes he makes her get out of bed, or pushes her into going to town. At those times she just wishes they would go back to ignoring each other.. then inevitably, her minds goes to the thought of sleeping in a bed without him there to keep away the nightmares.. and she knows she has to deal with his annoyance because she needs him too much.

Somehow she must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knows, someone has slammed her front door and she jerks upward. A bright light illuminates the kitchen and she blinks painfully at the windows. She's been asleep all day, which is nothing new, but the position in which she has slept unquestionably is. Her lower back aches dully as she pushes herself to her feet and her kneecaps throb.

Katniss is unconcerned about the heavy footsteps at the front of her house. Instead of moving to greet the guest or to frighten them away, she reaches for the plate of stale food on the table. She remembers this morning and feels a slight, ungraspable emotion of guilt at the way she snapped at Greasy Sae and kicked her out of the house, when the old woman had only been trying to encourage her to go outside for fresh air. She also recalls that she had promised to do the dishes.. and she always tries to keep her promises.

After dumping the useless food away and moving to the sink, her eyes are fully adjusted to the light. Outside, the sky is a soft, ducky orange, that clings to the distant trees beyond District 12. She's been sleeping _all_ day, and it is sunset, she realizes with a jolt. That's Peeta. He's home from the bakery. Again, a wave of nerves hits her remembering this morning.

Katniss tenses as she hears behind her the footsteps reach the kitchen doorway. They stop just beyond it, timid. She tries to focus on the dishes in her hands as she rinses them, but her face and shoulder heat up the longer their silence drags on. _Let's just forget it, _she recalls her claim earlier that morning before Peeta left for work, and now she thinks that it was a stupid assumption that they could. She has to face it at some point. Her hands underneath the faucet go still when Peeta starts to speak. "Katniss?"

"Yes?"

"Can you.. look at me?"

She nods curtly, silently, a ball of cotton in her throat. Without hesitation she reaches for the silver knob to turn off the running water before she swivels about on her feet to face him. At the sight of him leaning in the doorway, she leans away, finding support against the counter.

Katniss reminds herself to be nice to him. He couldn't help what happened this morning, and she wouldn't punish him for it, even though it greatly embarrassed them both and made her feel guilty. They were friends after all, and she owed him that much of a courtesy. Especially after all they've been through.. even just in these past nine months since he's returned to District 12. What were they? Nothing truly. They weren't a couple. Though they never truly spoke about it, they had gotten into the habit of sleeping in the same bed. She needed him there, because the nightmares were bad, and he needed her for the same reason. They just couldn't sleep without each other. She couldn't get out of bed without Peeta's insistence and he couldn't pull himself from the dark patches without her stubborn imperativeness. They were essentially nothing, just enjoying the presence of each other and the silent companionship they provided. Sometimes she would sit in the kitchen to watch him bake, or in the bedroom while he painted, but there was nothing to talk of. Even when he would watch her cook or sleep, he said nothing, did nothing. They were perfectly in balance, waiting and watching as the other heals. That is, until this morning, and Katniss woke up to a very unquestionably _hard_ piece of evidence to ignore.

She feels the heat in her face again. Peeta's eyes don't miss it as he stare at her across the kitchen.

"I just wanted to come over and.. well," he scuffs the floor with his foot and rubs at her jaw with a hand. She can feel the nervousness rolling off of him in waves, gripping her sides like ice. She doesn't want him to feel bad about this morning. It wasn't his fault. He was a man of eighteen now, and most men of that age have needs, and Peeta's never presented the problem before; he was too much of a gentleman. Katniss won't lie. She does not know much about the male anatomy, but this morning... what she glimpsed must have been something to do with sexual appetites.

Agh. Just the words made her shudder. "Peeta, don't apologize."

"I want to. I should have.."

"What? Never felt anything? That you aren't allowed to feel? Ever?" Katniss tries to sound nonchalant, as she crosses her arms over her chest and rolls her eyes as an excuse not to look at him. "I just.. over reacted this morning, because I wasn't expecting it. We're friends, so I was, taken off guard by the.."

"It wasn't anything toward you," Peeta rushes out, then flushes deep scarlet when Katniss raises her head to look at him. "I mean.. well.." Peeta fumbles with his words and a look of brief panic flits across his eye. It is something she finds endearing. "You were a part of it," he breathes slightly, "but I wanted to make sure you understood that by it I wasn't trying to pressure you into something, or make you feel compelled to respond to it. It doesn't have to be problem.. I don't want it to ruin.. what we have."

_What do we have? _But she doesn't want to think about that, so she forces her thoughts aside. All she wants to do is to get through this. She can do that. She just had a nap, she feels awake.. in fact, she feels lived-wired, her heart beating heavily, not furiously, inside her chest. It is a strange, disconcerting feeling.. it is a different feeling from being a ghost, and her hand that clutches the sink behind her back tightens its grip. This is why she needs him. He makes her feel alive. He gives her a reason to be around, because she knows he needs her as much as she needs him. Just like the bread and the dandelions, Peeta is her reason to limp on, march on together, despite the troubles faced.

This is just another thing they can get through. So Peeta was having physically romantic feelings for her? She doesn't want it to ruin or put pressure on their already fragile relationship, either. And she can tell Peeta has been stressing himself out on this point all day long. He probably thinks she'll kick him to the curb or something equally ridiculous.

"We needs rules," Katniss suddenly blurts.

"Rules?"

"Yeah. Guidelines. I don't.. I want to make sure we understand each other. That there are limits. I don't want this to be.. all messed up like before. Both of us need guidelines, and we need to understand each other.. and what the other persons wants from them."

"So what are you saying?" Peeta asks. "You want us to draw up terms of a relationship.. right now? Here?"

Is that what she was saying? "Uh.."

"Katniss," Peeta says and she forces herself to meet his gaze. Her mind focuses on just absorbing the sight of Peeta standing inside of her house. All she sees is a boy of nineteen standing burly and broad shouldered in a doorway. There is a shadow of dark blonde on is cheeks and jaw, making him seen even older, more sophisticated, but to counter that enhancement his shirt and pants and even his hands are stained with multiple different hues of paint. Some of the paint even looks recent. It makes him look like a kid who got in the art supplies and made a mess of things. There's even a streak of blue paint beside his ear, crusted into his blonde curls, next to his temple and Katniss feels the ghost of a smile tug at her lips.

Katniss strangles that particularly action quickly, burrowing it deep inside her chest. She tells herself that she doesn't like the way the paint looks all over him. He's messy. He hasn't been taking care of himself. But, underneath, she can't deny that she enjoys the sight of it, or the refreshing qualities behind it. The paint just seems to flaunt his childlike antics and carelessness. He looks like a child that has wandered out of the reach of his mother, before she could lick her thumb and scrub at the dirt on his nose.

Peeta looks at her with just as much precision as she is him. At least she knows she doesn't look tired. Self consciously she brushes the tip of her braid over her shoulder and briskly turns her face away from his gaze. What is he thinking? What was he thinking about this morning?

There is an infinite pause of silence, then Peeta says, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay, let's do this."

Katniss struggles for a moment because she honestly doesn't know the first rule she would want to present or enforce. All she does is watch emotionlessly as Peeta takes a seat at her kitchen table and indicates with a hand for her to sit in the chair across from him. She knows she did this. She called all of this onto herself, so why does it seem like an extremely hard thing to do?

She sits across from him, sinking slowly into the chair, arms still wrapped around her torso.

She avoids his eyes. The silence seems to gather around them, as he puts together his thoughts and she barricades her composure. When a faint smile crosses his lips, Katniss hugs herself tighter and forces her eyes not to focus on them. "Just so you know, I'm keeping the beard. So if that's one of your conditions, you might want to come up with a different one," Peeta says lightheartedly, weakly. Again his hand raises to rub at his jaw. It leaves behind a smudge of green paint.

Katniss tries not to scowl at the sight of that. It's his new fidget, his new fix. He likes his ridiculous beard. Part of her just wants to reach across the table and rip his hand from his face and hold it tightly in hers; the other half takes a deep breath and resists the impulse.

She gets that he's joking. He's trying to make this less awkward. It won't work. She's forgotten how to use playful banter.. she remembers how Finnick liked playful banner. How Prim should of had a lifetime of loving jokes with a man she would have loved dearly, or to the many children a person like Prim should of had. Maybe even Boggs, maybe he secretly liked the silly things people like Peeta say... Katniss struggles to pull herself from her pit. She tries to remember what Peeta originally said. "Well, maybe I like the beard," she finally manages to respond, with a shrug of indifference.

"Do you?"

"Eh." Honestly, yes, she does. She likes the way it makes him look; rugged, older, laid back, and combined with the lazy and warm smiles he gives her at times, it has an unknown physical and mental impact on her. It gives her something to think about.. sometimes she wonders what it would feel like underneath her fingers, because he rubs at it so much himself... and she wonders if it would tickle her face if she kissed him...

_No. I don't want to kiss him. We're prefect just as we are. This is why we need rules._

Peeta is looking at her. His stare is imploring, searching. She can feel those crystalline blue eyes nudging at her soul, making inquisitions, checking inventory. She meets the stare. She's too stubborn to look away first. He's.. what is thinking? She doesn't know what he might add to the list of rules, she's not even sure what the rules entitle, are they really just guidelines? Or will they be the conditions? A deal of some sort? An agreement? Whatever he's trying to decide about her, by staring so intently, she's determined not to let it show. However, the longer their regard for each other lasts, a flush of red falls hotly across her shoulder and lower neck. _What does he see? What is he hoping to find?_

Abruptly, before she gets her answers, he breaks eye contact and looks about the kitchen, as if seeing it for the first time. "This is a poor room," he says finally. "A poor place to sleep." He glances at Katniss out the corner of his eye.

"I find it warm enough, and pleasant," she says, indignant. Ridiculously, she feels obliged to defend her house, while truthfully, her house is messy and empty, and she dislikes it.

He grins. The brightness of that, the sheer amused quality of that stretch of his lips, takes Katniss off guard and she feels her expression slip momentarily. "Nevertheless, I would prefer that you spend your nights with me from now on."

Katniss feels her stomach leap at those words. Was that an offering..? To..? Peeta is either far more bold than she recalls or he has alternative motives. She stares at him, her steely grey eyes hardening into quarters, as she tries to understand him, to find his ulterior plans.

"I mean to say: Move in with me."

"No," she says, decisively.

"I thought you might say that," Peeta sighs. He rocks a little in his chair; fidgeting, nervous. "I just wanted to make the offer. Your choice. Spend your nights with me, or..." his eyes bounce around the kitchen, "here."

She stared at him, clearly untrusting. "What do you mean? Why can't you sleep here anymore? You have been for months."

Peeta eyes hold such a weighty penetration, that it's hard to hold onto her void expression. He opens his mouth more than once, before he looks away and manages to say, "Spend your nights with me— I am demanding no sexual favors or comforts from you— and I'll.. make your favorite cheese buns all the time?"

Katniss can't help narrowing her eyes at him. She cocks her head slightly, just to convey her extreme confusion. She almost feels bad for Peeta when his cheeks burn scarlet underneath her consideration. "You remember that?"

"Remember what?" Peeta looks her in the face quickly, eye flying across it, trying to absorb her topic. "That we used to sleep together like that before the war? I remember... a little, yeah. I.. I missed it before I came back here.." and he swallows thickly. She feels his instant vulnerability. He's just admitted to something. He's done it first, and she feels relief at that. "All I'm saying is that you never leave this house. I want you to move into mine."

Katniss can see the fear in his face and wonders if he thinks she'll take advantage of the easy target he's just strung up between them. Instead, she ignores most of his words and corrects herself. "I mean, the cheese buns. You remember that they're my favorite. You've never.. mentioned that before.."

Peeta shrugs. "I remembered all along."

That's a lie. He didn't even remember his favorite color when he first returned to her broken. Except.. this doesn't seem like broken Peeta. Nor does it seem like old Peeta. This Peeta is a strange mixture that she has been dealing with for nine months. He is sweet and lighthearted, but he far too timid and skittish to be old Peeta. Yet... he wants her like old Peeta used to.. but for how long? She knows it's been a long time since his last episode, and that he would never hurt her... really, all he's asking for is a little piece of sacrifice on her side. Can she give that? For cheese buns? But it's a little more than that, she decides. He wants her inside his house, why? To get her out? Just to test her willingness to do as he asks?

She still doesn't see what's wrong with her house. "You move in here."

"I made that suggestion first, that's my condition."

They _are_ conditions, then. "Well if we move into your house, what more do I have to bargain for?"

"Throw something at me. I'm sure we can find a compromise."

Katniss thinks it over. "Let's say.. I do move into your house. If I do, you have to promise never to make me go out unless I want to. And if I don't want to get out of bed, you leave me there."

Peeta seems uncertain. "If that happens, I might promise, but you have to _really_ move in with me. All your stuff has to go to my house, and you can't back out."

That sounds frighteningly permanent. "What if we have a fight? Or you break the deal? Or.."

"Then I'll sleep on the coach. I won't kick you out of a house, and if you find it hard not to kick me out, I'll crash at Haymitch's. Don't try to find loopholes. You're the one who wanted this all laid out. I want you close to me, so I can watch you, and.. because I need you around.. I can't imagine a future without you. Just spend your nights with me. I'll make you all the cheese buns in the world and this way it's easier for us to talk more. I want to talk to you. This is all I'm asking for, nothing less, nothing more."

He's baiting her into sharing a bed and house with him by taunting her with cheese buns and words. "Why do you want that so much?"

_Because I want you, _his eyes seems to say. "Because I want to know you better, and I want you to know me." Katniss frowns, and instantly he can see her trying to fathom the trap. "No trap," he whispers.

"With you there is always a trap."

"No trap," Peeta swears and crosses his heart.

"Are you sure..." she starts to say, then forgets what she originally wanted to ask. Instead, she thinks of the dark pit, but for some reason it's not clawing at her from the inside, trying to drag her out of the present. No, she feels very present, and her thoughts feel very clear. Startled grey eyes fly up to look at Peeta. "Do you really want me there?"

Shock flits across Peeta's eyes. "I don't play with promises, Katniss," and his voice seems richer when he says her name. "I really want you there... I wish you'd be there a lot more. Not just in my bed, because I swear, I will not force you to any sexual play that you do not want. That you do not ask for. I just want to be around you. You make me.. happy.." Peeta's words slam to a halt. Frustratedly, he grabs at his jaw again and meshes his lips together, then he shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to throw my soul at you. I know how you hated it the first time around." A smile appears on his face suddenly. "I guess it's like you said. I don't know what to say or how to act around you either."

Katniss tries to absorb everything that's passing between them. He's always been good with words, she knows, but somehow she knows it's not the words that make her stomach drop through her feet. It's the emotion. His actual, genuine want for those things he speaks of. Does she want them, too?

Katniss licks her lips nervously. It's not a bad deal; in fact, all it's asking of her is that she doesn't slip away from him during the days and that she remains at his house instead of hers. She hasn't been to his house since before the Quarter Quell, though, and like he said, what would they talk about? She mulls it over multiple times. Really, he wasn't asking her for as much as she thought he might. She thought Peeta would ask for kisses and affection and love, like he used to want.

She is critically silent, and Peeta is waiting anxiously for an answer. Then, with some obvious reluctance, she nods. "Okay. I'll move into your house and start to be around more, if you promise not to pressure me to go out."

Peeta's triumphant beam is enough to make her heart swell. "We must seal the bargain with a kiss."

_Wait._ She stutters in her thoughts."You said no sexual play I did not ask for!"

"It is but the conclusion of a pact, Katniss, and common enough," he waves a careless hand in the air. Then catches her eyes and she sees the mischievous, playful spark there. He leans forward across the kitchen table. "Come on. One kiss."

"One?" she asks.

"One."

Katniss can't help but feel he was planning this all along as he leans further across the table, his eyelids hooded, lips parting slightly, and she can't help but lean forward as well, to meet him there, as he lays his mouth very gently against hers. For a moment her eyes are closed too, and his scraggly cheek brushes hers. Her hand that had unknowingly gone limp on the tabletop is pulled into one of Peeta's, and his thumb brushes lightly across her knuckles.

He let it go at that, waiting, and is rewarded when she sighs, and moves her mouth more firmly under his. He increases the depth of his kiss, but still keeps it undemanding. For an instant she resists, and then all her want and need, all her desire for him floods through her, and she opens her mouth completely under his. She melts against him, and, very, very slowly, they pull apart.

Katniss immediately drops her eyes to their intertwined hand. Her words are a sigh of defeat. "One more thing... another condition of mine."

"Yes?"

"Marry me."

"Done," Peeta immediately shoots off and his grip on her hand tightens lovingly, a sweet, lazy smile appearing on his rugged, paint-stained face. "But you have to kiss me again, to seal the deal."

This time Katniss does not hesitate in leaning across the table to press her lips into his.

* * *

_**Coming up next is 03: Soft**_


	3. 03: Soft

_A/N: Silly, I know. Thanks for reading. Sorry for typos. Reviews are love. -Taryn(:_

* * *

03: Soft

The rain had been falling hard all day long. Already she was soaked, not ten yards from the school yard and on top of that, she was struggling to put some papers in her bag, while at the same time trying to keep herself walking straight.

The stupid leaflets of the assignments kept getting stuck on the edge of the bag. Dripping water from her hands onto the paper didn't help because they just stuck to the threadbare rucksack even more. One time she tried, then a second. Prim's voice piped up from her side, talking about her day at school, as she danced around the wavering puddles of gray. Katniss tried to listen to her sister and to deal with the infuriating papers, but as a result she was forced to turn her head. She couldn't hear Prim's soft voice over the rain sputtering against nearby umbrella's or buildings, so her attention was not nearly focused enough on the assignments. Essentially, they were useless papers, because she wouldn't read them later, and she wouldn't hand them in.

On a split decision she let the three or four papers that wouldn't shove inside her bag fall to the pavement, into mud puddles and the raindrop glittered grass, uncaring. Prim looked at them momentarily, until Katniss waved a careless hand and asked her to say what she was saying before.

"Well, today in school we were being taught–"

"Excuse me?" cut in a soft, uncertain voice and Katniss stalled in her walk.

Prim stopped too, but she hadn't heard the voice. She lifted her big blue eyes to blink at Katniss. Raindrops splattered the blonde hair to Prim's pale forehead as she looked up at her sister, a inquisition in her eyes. Katniss didn't move. Maybe she had imagined it. If Prim hadn't heard...

Then the voice repeated itself, "Excuse me? Katniss?"

Prim turned on her toes before Katniss did, eager to please those who sought her out. The voice however came from a boy that had meant his pardon toward her bigger sister. A bigger sister which felt a sudden twist inside her stomach at the sound of the voice. She turned about, but much less eager and very wary.

At the sight of him, she was surprised to note he wasn't holding an umbrella like most kids from town. The rain seemed to eagerly devour the dry stitches of his clothes and skin, clinging the fabric to his every muscle within the biceps and shoulders. Katniss saw on glance they were noticeably tense and wound up. She felt the muscle in her own hands clench. Wet fingers cramping around the shoulder strap of her bag.

_Of course it's him_, she thought, equal parts agitated, and, peculiarly, anxious.

Suddenly aware of the dripping strands of black hair hanging over her forehead into her eyes, she brushed them aside self-consciously, before raising her gaze to meet another timid one. His eyes were a washed out sort of blue in the dull light of the cloudy, gray afternoon in District 12. About his back she could spot the rest of the students leaving the school yard; two distinctive groups separating in two different directions. One group streaking with black hair and dark skin toward the lower half of the district, and the others taking their time picking their way around puddles and holding coverings over their heads, if not sharing them with others, all bright and blonde.

She refocused on the boy in front of her at the sound of his voice. "You dropped these," Peeta said.

Was it just her or did he seem a bit breathless, as though he'd run after her to grab them?

"Oh," she said, forcing her lips to form the word.

Sweet rain water on her cheek slid into her mouth as it moved and she licked her lips. She didn't have the heart to tell him she'd dropped them on purpose. Not when he stood before her shivering in the cold air, the rain make his clothes hang over him like a wet blanket. The papers were already wet and sticky, though. Peeta held them out to her, and she didn't reach out a hand to take them. She just stared at the papers. Tried to think of something to say. Something not mean, she hoped.

Prim shifted uncomfortable in her wet clothes.

Peeta took a step closer, thrusting the papers timidly forward an inch or two, as an indication. An invitation for Katniss to take them back. He didn't meet her eyes, as they strayed left to right, across the puddles along the sidewalk. He looked so uncomfortable. _Why?_ she wondered. Because he's talking to a girl from the Seam and he's worried people will start to notice their little gathering of three if they stand there a minute too long? Unjustified irritation took hold of Katniss. She found her heart. "You can keep them," she said, not harshly, but dismissively. "I wasn't going to do them anyway."

Prim cocked her head slightly at the exchange of the two, but Katniss merely grabbed her by the hand and began in the opposite direction away from Peeta. _Not one word, _she thought, _we have not talked, ever. He saved my life and I never thanked him for it. Not one word, _she thought, _and he's trying to help me again... and all I do is shove him off for prejudice?_

Katniss' doubts are swallowed by her stubbornness.

They made it three yards before she heard the sound of heavy footsteps scrambling after them. Prim turned back first, surrendered Katniss' grudge, tugging at Katniss' hand, insisting her sister to give the bakery boy some attention, too.

However, it seemed the bakery boy didn't need attention. He simply walked up to the side of Katniss that Prim wasn't on and took the shoulder strap of her bag. He didn't tug or pull, simply, laid his hand across the strap just over her shoulder, against her upper back and she stiffened at the warmth. Heat seeped through her damp shirt to her skin and so distracted by her shock that he'd touched her, let alone talked to her in years, she watched unresisting as Peeta tucked the three or four papers into her rucksack.

She almost scowls at the mere fact he did it so smoothly and so quickly, the papers sliding right in, unresisting of his big square hands. The action took no more than a second, and Katniss couldn't find her voice to snap. She raised a hand, as a second thought, as Peeta was closing the bag. When his hand withdrew, hers met the right height and caught against his.

For one heartbeat, their wet fingers tangled together.

Peeta pulled away quickly, cheeks a deep, warm red. Katniss let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. "Sorry," Peeta said, and then shuffled away, running off back toward the schoolyard.

"That was nice," Prim pipped up from Katniss' side.

Katniss shot her little sister a reproachful look_. _It was too nice. Even after she'd brushed him off, he'd insisted. It was strange. But even stranger, throughout the whole walk home, Katniss could not focus on Prim as she spoke... there was another thought in her mind that demanded her perplexed attention...

...as all she could think about was that Peeta is strange...

…that she really didn't want the papers...

..and inevitably, numbly, peculiarly.. she thought, to herself, deep in her chest..

…_he has really soft hands._


	4. 04: Gift

A/N: Eh. Not my best, but I wanted to write this. Definitely not what really happened. Just me writing this all on one purge. Not much plot. Lots of fluff. -Taryn

* * *

04: Gift

Katniss opens the door, not overly surprised to see Haymitch standing there.

He's sober. And she tries not to scowl; recently she's liked him much better when he's drunk.

"You broke that poor kids heart," Haymitch accuses.

"What do you know about hearts?" she snaps and moves to slam the door. She can't even remember why she'd opted to answer it. She knew Haymitch had watched the whole event yesterday. She felt Haymitch's eyes on her within town as Peeta approached her for the first time in months since his return to the district. She knew Haymitch was the man who went after Peeta as she ran from him; after, of course, refusing to hear his words.

Haymitch lurches forward and tosses the door back until it is out of her hand, slamming against the back wall. She makes to simply run upstairs, but it stopped by Haymitch as he says, "Did you even hear what he _said_?"

"Yes, I heard," she says, stiff and awkward.

"And you heard him say he made something for you?"

"I don't see why that's going to matter..." she stumbles. "He also told me that he thought we shouldn't..." Katniss turns away from Haymitch. She shouldn't have to tell him all that went down the day her and Peeta actually spoke after the war. How she had invited him in, minimally, the hint underscoring her words, and he refused her. Or maybe that was too harsh. He simply said that space would ensure that it was the best decision for both of them. Space, so he wouldn't hurt her. Space, so she wouldn't make a mistake. Space, that kept them apart for five longs months, that she spent almost entirely inside, staring out her kitchen window, at the house next to hers.

Haymitch doesn't ask for these details, rather, he says, "He made something for you." And then he is gone.

_Made what? _she finds herself wondering.

For three long, quiet days she wonders.

Then it becomes too much for her and she finds herself on her front porch, leaning against the railing. Night is emanate around her. The chorus of crickets and a distant nightingales crying to the silver ring in the sky. Already, she doesn't want to move past the first steps to the lawn.

She is thinking about Primrose when she turns away and means to return to her bed.

A clashing sound draws her back around.

She knows it came from the house next to hers. She can hear shouting. The sound of things being thrown around. Something shatters. There is only one light on and its an upstairs window.

Katniss compresses her lips and stands where she is, eyes trained on the window.

Part of her feels and urge to go to him. He needs help. He's sick. An episode has taken over him and she wonders what triggered it. She wonders if he might be hurting himself; and aches in her chest at the thought.

It's stupid to go over there. He might attack her. And it's the middle of the night. For all she knows he could lunge at her and kill her with his two hands before she could scream. Not that screaming would matter. The only other participant of the Victor's Village is a dunk old man who is probably passed out at this late hour.

Another piece of her, the louder piece, knows he wouldn't hurt her.

She doesn't realize she's holding the railing in a death grip until they're white in their blood constriction.

Something hits the window. It splatters and leaves flecks of something across the smooth, transparent surface. From her distance she knows it liquid, but not the color, not the thickness. All she knows is it beads and rolls down and nearly covers the entire pane.

She's off her porch, jogging, before she knows. The night is warm but the sun is long gone, leaving it to the pale moonlight to illuminate the short path between their houses. She feels her uncertainty full force as she continues to walk. It is stupid. Maybe he doesn't need her. Perhaps she's the last person he wants to see.

Yet, she feels.. she _feels_. And that's all she can focus on as she walks barefoot through his front lawn, feeling the grass between her toes for the first time in months.. breathing in the fresh air as though she has not breathed in years.

She's been imaging what it would be like to do this for five months sitting at her kitchen window and she's glad it's actually happening. If only she were coming because she knew he wanted her, not because she thinks he needs her.

Once she reaches the front door to Peeta's victor's house, she glances back to her house with nervous eyes, then opens the door, and holding her breath, slips inside.

For a moment it is only blackness, and it disturbs Katniss so much that she actually moves further in the house, hearing Peeta's voice, needing the reassurance of his presence. Then she shakes herself, listens to the stream of curses from his mouth and she leans toward the wall, fingers searching for the light switch.

Within a heartbeat soft lights glows from overhead. They does not flare suddenly into life, but gently pervades the dark with their luminescence, as dawn lightens the land toward the end of night.

Her first impression as the lights slowly intensify is one of space. And Katniss is bewildered.

Peeta's house used to be the same in structure as her house and Haymitch's, but it seems he's been doing more than sitting around and sleeping in the past five months like herself. Walls that were in her house are missing in his, torn down. She finds herself standing in a large entryway, where he's made the living room and front room and the office room into one oblong vestibule.

For a moment, she wonders if he's done that because he, too, felt the house was suffocating at times.

Then she notices the floors, that have been painted over. The bland wooden panels are obscured by a mask of vivid blue, gold, and scarlet tessellated patterns. They're bright to the eyes, but not offending, for they are deeper, richer than the colors of the Capitol. Something about the design.. it seems completely unnecessary and silly, and just like Peeta. Interweaving in alternatively dancing vines and pools and swivels of shapes, that if one looks hard enough they can become many different things. A butterfly, whisking across the ground underneath your toes. Twisted, gnarled trees without branches, just ten thousand fingers splaying outward.

If Katniss squints she can see figures twirling around between the scarlet and gold outlines.

The walls are similarly taken over, and are what she finds most enthralling. Everywhere, every little piece of his house, even the ceilings, painted. There are bright scenes and shady ones. On the ceiling of his entry way is a thicket of trees, and about them, seeming to actually flutter and jump from the mortar are mockingjays.

Her eyes are impossibly wide. She feels a hint of fire in her cheeks, wondering, _is this what he made me? All these paintings?_

Upstairs, there is a soft _thud. _As though someone has just thumped to their knees.

She feels more of an urge to go to him, as she flings herself up the stairs.

The upstairs is just as destroyed. All of the rooms aside two separate ones (a bedroom and bathroom, she muses) have been spared from the huge open area of the second story. Katniss can't help but pause to appreciate it; the openness, the cool air.

She sees him of course, the first thing her eyes are drawn to. He is on the floor, his hunched over back to her, his face in his hands. Everywhere, just like the downstairs, is painted and full of color, of life.

Just not him.

Katniss takes a small step forward, assessing the damage he's done. There is spilt paint nearly everywhere, adding even more flecks of color and stripes of paint on the pictures or masterpiece. The window I'd been watching is soaked in a coating of blue paint, as smooth as the curl of a flower petal, as bright and soothing as pale sunlight spilling through a window. Below it sits an empty, toppled over bucket of paint.

Then, inevitably, her eyes stray to above his head, to the wall her kneels in front of.

A mural covers the whole of that one wall. This one is of people, though, opposed to all the others. People she recognizes, too. People, like Finnick, and Annie, and Prim, and Boggs, and the old man who whistled in District 11, and Cinna, and Katniss feels the darkness open up inside her, clawing at her spirit, trying frantically to pull her back inside her own shell within her.

She must have made a noise. Some mewl of agony as she overlooks the picture of Primrose. So perfect. So realistic it's like staring at her little sister in life. The smile wide and impossibly honest and the blue eyes dancing with life. A life that is gone.

She must have made a noise, because Peeta stiffens, and turns his head and is horrified to see her.

Peeta is bathed in paint, so when he stands some of it drips from his fingers to the floor. She stares at that. The green little blots that fall onto a picture of a horse; something she's never actually seen in real life. She thinks about those hands. What they might do to her; wrap around her throat? And almost irritatingly, she thinks about how it was those hands that painted all these beautiful things, how gentle they must have been as he stroked the length of Thresh's jaw, or encircled the eyes of Annie's, making them that perfect sea green...

"I.." Peeta starts, haltingly. He shakes his head and stares at me, looking pale. He is embarrassed. He is nervous. He is afraid. "How long have you.."

Not long. She wants to say that, but her face remains expressionless as her eyes dance from his hand to his face. "You were shouting," she says, demurely.

He laughs, relieved, she thinks, and shakes his head.

"I didn't mean any of that, what I said," he tells her.

"Doesn't matter. I didn't hear."

There is a long awkward silence as he stares at her, and she stares beyond him. "You came," Peeta finally says, decides, rather. There is reveling in his voice. "I thought you wouldn't."

"I wouldn't," she says, keen on being honest. She watches it hit him. As if her words were actually a blow. "But you were shouting."

"You were worried?" he asks.

She gives a slow, lumberous shrug of her shoulders. As if to say, _I dunno_.

Silence. Katniss is distracted by the mural again. Now that he's moved she sees around Primrose's feet is the ugly cat, Buttercup, tail tucked around her ankles. Sitting on Annie's hip is her son, reddish bronze hair seeming to actually to shine. Somehow he's captured the anger in Jo's eyes as she leans into a tree. Most of the paint is still wet; he painted this today, and in fact has not finished it. At the end, there is a figure half finished, but a blanket of paint has been thrown over it; angrily, in frustration, something.

She knows who it is because there is only one person that seems to be missing from the entourage.

The knowledge sinks past her layer of indifference, through skin and bone, and it sticks, sharp in her soul. How fitting, for Peeta to have thrown a bucket of black paint over himself. Completely blotting him out of the mural, a roil of darkness, poisoned, in-perfected by the touch of the blackness.

She finds her voice. "Is this.. is this what you made for me?"

Peeta doesn't seem sure what to do; he seems startled by her voice and question for a moment, then he collects himself and glances around. "All of it? Mostly. I just.. had to change something. In my head.. when I arrived everything was still dark and scary sometimes.." he pauses. "I had to do something with my hands and time. It's hard not to get lost in my memories.. or false memories.. so most of this is due to boredom, at the beginning. Then I thought I could make it somewhere safe and pretty, like that song.. the meadow song you sang for Rue. I remember seeing that on a propo." He runs a hand through his hair, leaving streaks of green and red paint in his tresses. "So now.. it's sort of my retreat from everything that people expect of me, or fear from me, or consider me."

Another pause.

His blue eyes on her. "But, yeah. For you."

_What people fear of him, or considers him?_

Katniss stares at him, and he makes a face. "You think all of this is a stupid, don't you? You think I just wasted all of this paint and my time.. and I ruined a perfectly good house with my mess. And my tantrum.."

"Do I?" she asks, barely opening her lips.

"I don't know, you tell me," he replies.

No other answer could have made her more sure of herself.

She wants to know what made him snap. Self loathing, possibly. She knows what that feels like. When she thinks of Primrose, just pink mist of a bomb, her ashes curling underneath the flames of the fire. She hates herself for breathing and eating and living. Except where she lies still and stares at a ceiling, Peeta throws things in his anger.

Katniss isn't about to bring it up.

She distracts herself by paying more attention to her surroundings than him. She wants to tell him that she loves it.. adores it, but won't. What does he want from her? What does she want from him? Her thoughts stray to the dark areas as she nears the bedroom. Peeta hasn't moved or spoken, but as her fingertips just touch the door frame he stirs. "That's my favorite," he says. "The ceiling."

Katniss eyes him, then peers into the bedroom.

Peeta continues talking, "I like looking at it before I go to sleep. It makes my dreams.. a bit better, normally." He winces at the last part. _I can change that,_ she thinks, suddenly. _I can take away some of your pain, like it used to be, like you used to do for me. _She pushes away the thoughts and focuses her eyes.

His bedroom is the brightest, with lots of orange. It seems intimate, although not claustrophobic, and the ceiling, Katniss can't help but agree with Peeta's favoritism to the art. He had painted it a deep-blue and patterned it with pink and scarlet flowers rioting amid soft gray-green leaves. Primroses and daises and poppies were among the floral arrangements, jumping out. Beautiful and Katniss feels a little embarrassed for staring at it a moment too long.

She gives her head a shake and notices the air here is better tasting than her house— warm, slightly humid, and sweetly spiced., freshly baked treats, lingering in the air.

For a moment, she's ravenously hungry, then Peeta asks, "Do you like it?" Timidness is clearly making his voice taunt and she sees his face is equally strained and hopeful.

She loves it. She loves the openness, the paintings that draw her mind away from the present.

"Why?" she asks. She makes a small gesture with her fingers, not lifting her arm from her side, but Peeta sees it and turns his head to gaze at the wall behind him, full of the faces from their past.

Peeta turns back to her and shows a sad smile. "I wanted to paint them," he whispers, "because I thought they deserved to be somewhere safe and pretty, too."

"That's.." she tries to say, chokes and begins again, "They do."

_But not yourself?_ she thought. And she makes another gesture with her hand. It's involuntarily. An instinct. A warm prickle behind her eyes continuing to strengthen as Peeta's eyes fly from her fingers to her face, uncertain.

She makes the beckoning gesture again, weakly.

And Peeta comes. He nearly bounds the distance between them and when his arms slip around her, the tears well out of her eyes and she curses herself for letting them fall. She didn't want to cry.

But it felt so nice to slip into his chest. To feel his breath in her hair. Safe and warm and impossibly good.

"Thank you," she whispers into his chest. She means it. She can't not thank him for this gift. She won't wait another five years to do it, only when it's too late.

She won't wait five months again, even if he's the one who decided he wanted the space.


	5. 05: Reunion

A/N: I don't even know. Make of it what you'd like. Tis strange, but I enjoyed writing it and figured I needed an update. -Taryn

* * *

**04: Reunion (AU)**

Peeta paced back and forth, back and forth, knowing that Madge was standing and watching him and wondering why he was so nervous. But he couldn't stop himself from pacing.

Back and forth, back and forth.

One of his men came into the chamber with some trivial question and Peeta snarled at him. The man fled. Madge raised her eyebrows. Peeta made a gesture composed of equal parts frustration and impatience, and forced himself to sink into a chair.

He gripped the armrests, for otherwise Peeta thought he might have sprung up almost as soon as he had sat down. It had been six weeks since Madge had arrived, and in those six weeks little seemed to have been accomplished. It was hard for him to focus on the war at hand with all the other thoughts in his head. He _had_ managed to consolidated his hold on the outlying districts of 11, 10 and 9, as well as secure the port of District 4, and he had moved on to the Capitol, but Peeta had not managed much else.

The Capitol was Peeta's prize, he wanted it desperately, but almost as desperately he did not want to destroy it in the taking. The Capitol was a fortified city, it could be defended, and it had by all accounts a good militia. The very last thing Peeta wanted was to become enmeshed in a siege that kept him from his kingship for months, if not years.

So, using his years of military training and his past of conquering, Peeta hedged and threatened and negotiated, moving his army eastward, swinging south below The Capitol, then marching west and across the mountains near District 2. From there Peeta moved his army to District 1. Here he had moved himself, Madge, and his immediate command into a large and comfortable abbey house while his army made do with sleeping more roughly in the frosty glades or, if they were lucky, the outbuildings and barns of local miners. And so at District 1, Peeta waited, until, two days ago, had come news that a delegation was moving west from The Capitol to meet him. And, perhaps, to surrender.

Heading the delegation was the dowager queen, Katniss.

They were due this afternoon; they had, in fact, arrived, and Peeta and Madge only waited for the delegation to be escorted into their presence.

Peeta, Madge thought, was far more nervous than he should be, and she wondered why.

Personally, Madge was more than looking forward to meeting Katniss. She'd heard so many intriguing things about the woman over the past years (although intimate, personal information about the queen had largely ceased to come her way after she had lost her spy within Katniss' ladies in waiting) that now Madge could barely restrain herself from hopping from foot to foot.

_Was Katniss the reason Peeta was so nervous?_ Madge suddenly wondered. _And if so, why? _At least Katniss could not possibly be the threat that Madge knew Clove had posed. Since her arrival, Clove had kept her distance; from Madge, at least, although Madge had seen Clove talking to Peeta on two or three occasions when she managed to catch him at some distance from his wife. Madge refused to let that get to her; Peeta was loyal to her, she knew.

There was a knock at the door, and Thom of District 12, one of Peeta's senior commanders, entered. "They are here, waiting outside," he said.

Madge saw Peeta draw in a deep breath and slowly rise from the chair. She also saw him briefly clench and then relax his hands. "How many, and who?" Peeta said.

"The dowager queen," said Thom. "Gale's chancellor. Coriolanus Snow, the archbishop of The Capitol. And a small retinue, unarmed."

Peeta was silent, a little too long, for Thom glanced at Madge in concern. "Pray send in only the queen," Peeta said eventually. "Entertain the rest with good wine and food and warmth, and tell them that I shall receive them later."

Thom nodded, bowed, and left.

Madge watched as Peeta drew in yet another deep breath, and again clenched and relaxed his hands.

_Sweet Christ Lord_, she thought, _what has he to be so nervous about?_

Then the door opened, and Cato's queen and Gale's sister entered.

The first thing that Madge noticed as Katniss hesitated just inside the door was that the woman, if not stunningly beautiful according to court tastes, was nonetheless one of the most arresting figures Madge had ever laid eyes on. It was not her features so much, although Katniss' face and form, and most particularly her stunning grey eyes, were most pleasing, but that Katniss had a presence about her that was extraordinary. She was lovely in the manner of a still summer's day, and she carried about her a sense of peace and strength that Madge would have given her right arm to acquire.

She wore very simply-cut clothing, and had left her dark hair unveiled and unworked, save for a loosely bound plait that twisted over her left shoulder, but, even so, with her presence Katniss could be recognizable as nothing else but a queen.

The second thing Madge realized was that Katniss was as nervous and as tense as Peeta.

The third thing that Madge noticed was that Peeta and Katniss could not take their eyes off each other.

Madge was put out by this, only in the sense that it was so unexpected. She did not feel any presentiment of jealousy or of disquiet. She was consumed only by a sense of great curiosity and by a desire to understand what lay behind this extraordinary tension between her husband and Katniss.

"My lady queen," Madge said softly, but with enough strength to make Katniss' eyes flicker, then move away from Peeta to his duchess. "I do welcome you to District One, although"—Madge smiled, quite genuinely, and reached out both her hands as she walked over to Katniss—"I confess I feel most awkward in welcoming this land's queen into the presence of its invader."

Katniss returned Madge's smile. There was a tinge of annoyance in the back of those grey eyes. "I am but its forgotten queen," she said. "The wife of two kings past. _Johanna_ should truly be here."

"No," Peeta said, and Madge was more than a little relieved to hear that his voice was strong. "You are this land's queen, whatever brief claim Johanna might have had to the title. Thus you are here now, not Johanna."

He had also walked over, and Katniss took her hands from Madge's and held them out for Peeta. As Peeta took them, Madge had the sense that both Peeta and Katniss had quite forgotten she was there.

And again, Madge's only reaction was one of deep curiosity. _What went on here?_

"I am sorry about Gale," Peeta said. Madge noticed he had not let go of Katniss' hands.

Katniss nodded, and tears sprang to her eyes.

"It was none of my doing," Peeta said.

"It was Clove's doing," said Katniss and Madge as one, and both women looked at each other, smiled, laughed softly, and, in that single moment, became friends and allies. "Gale told me so much of you," the two women said together, and their laughter deepened, and whatever awkwardness had been in the chamber dissipated, and Katniss let Peeta's hands go to lean forward and embrace Madge.

"Thank you," Katniss murmured for Madge's ears only, "for coming so quickly to Peeta's side. He is whole, thank all the gods."

"I would not allow the snake to take him," Madge muttered, and Katniss leaned back, her face sober now, and nodded at Madge.

"We should speak later," she said. "You and I." Madge smiled in agreement. "But now," Katniss turned back to Peeta, "my lord of District 12, I have come before you for two reasons."

He inclined his head, his blue eyes very steady on her face.

"The first," Katniss said, "is to beg for the lives of Gale's children, and that of his wife, Johanna. She is currently with child, and greatly fearful that you intend her harm."

"I did not wish him dead, Katniss. I would have done anything to prevent that."

"I know," she said softly.

"I vowed to Gale that Johanna and his children would remain safe, Katniss. And so they shall. As shall you. He asked for your life as well. Did you know that?"

"I do not fear you, Peeta."

Madge felt that she should say something, if only to reassert her presence in the chamber. "Peeta has already hammered his orders into the heads of every one of the commanders with us," she said. "They are not to be harmed, and given every assistance possible."

"Then thank you both," said Katniss. "The safety of Gale's family means a great deal to me. The second reason I stand before you is to hand you The Capitol." She paused. "It is, after all, yours."

Madge frowned at that. _What did Katniss mean?_

Peeta's mouth twitched into a tiny smile. "Then I will gladly accept The Capitol's surrender, madam."

"Other members of my party wait outside. Shall you–"

"No, leave them for now. Perhaps..."

"Perhaps Peeta and I can remember the more courtly among our manners," Madge put in smoothly, "and offer you a chance to sit and perhaps have a cup of fine wine. Will you accept?"

Katniss smiled. "Gladly, my lady."

They sat for some time, sipping wine, chatting, agreeably; every look, every spoken word reinforcing Madge's growing belief that her husband and this queen were only reacquainting themselves rather than establishing an acquaintance.

Peeta and Katniss also focused too much of their discussion on Madge. What Madge had expected (before Katniss had actually entered their chamber) was that there would be tense verbal parrying as the queen tried to ensure the safety of her people and country, and Peeta tried to ensure every concession possible. Instead, Madge found herself in the slightly surreal situation of fielding constant questions from both Katniss and Peeta as they both tried very desperately not to engage the other one in anything other than cliches about the weather or the state of the rushes on the floor.

Katniss asked a score of questions about Madge's children. Peeta asked Madge to relate amusing incidents from their life together, and from that time in their youth when they'd had to fight so hard to marry against what felt like all of Panem combined against them. It was only during this last topic that there came a very deep and personal interaction between Peeta and Katniss.

As Madge finished relating the three years of struggling with princely and papal objections, Katniss actually looked at Peeta directly. "How strange for you," she said, "that you had to spend so much energy and time fighting for the right to occupy your wife's bed. From what I know of you, I should have thought you would only have let it go when the road turned hard. I had no idea ambition had come to mean so much to you."

There was a stillness between them as Madge tried to frantically work out the hidden meaning in what Katniss had just said. She felt slightly off-kilter for what Katniss implied. Peeta wasn't a man who gave up easily. He was a man of responsibility and strength and unity.

Anxiously, Madge turned to her husband, wondering if he would be offended. He wasn't. He looked like he was trying to hide pain in his eyes; both women saw it anyway.

"My sensibilities have changed," Peeta finally said, voice groveled.

"How fortunate for Madge," said Katniss, and now there was a decided edge to her voice.

"There have been deeds in my past that I have come to regret," Peeta said. "I wish I had not let go of..."

He stopped suddenly, his eyes sliding his wife's way.

_You!_ Madge thought, her face very calm. _You!_ _That's what you were about to say._

"I have learned from my mistakes," he said, and now his voice was as hard as Katniss'.

Katniss inclined her head toward Madge. "Patently, my lord of District Twelve."

"Madge," Peeta said very slowly, his eyes first on his goblet of wine and then lifting to Katniss, "has taught me how greatly I should have treasured..."

_You!_ Madge felt like standing and screaming that single word that Peeta was so loathe to utter. Yet for all the implications of this conversation, Madge still did not feel a single pang of jealousy or of possessiveness. All she wanted was to somehow discover what these two were talking about, and how it was—Madge took a deep breath as she finally allowed the thought to form in her mind—how it was that Peeta and Katniss had come to love each other so deeply.

Then, as Madge struggled within herself, Katniss turned her lovely eyes to her and said, simply, "I am sorry..." A pause, as Madge wondered what that apology referred to. "I am tired," Katniss continued, "and I admit that my reception had worried me so excessively on the journey to District One that now I feel over-weary. I speak nonsense, my lady. Forgive me."

_You weren't speaking nonsense to Peeta_, Madge thought, _for you have not begged forgiveness of him._


	6. 06: Curse

A/N: Right about now you're wondering where my head is; I'm not sure. I promise, less of these crazy un-Hunger Game universe ones. Just these for tonight. -Taryn

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05: Curse (AU-ish)

"How did you know?" I asked, rolling to him.

Peeta tilted his head down toward mine and considered me for a moment, eyes wandering about my face. "I was passing through southern territory, in District Ten, when a strange mist enclosed me. A creature came, tall, and pale, and with–"

"The most mournful face!" I said, and laughed.

He smiled, too. Slow, loving. "You know of what I speak?"

I told him of the freed mutations after the rebellion hundreds of years ago and of how they've grown strange, developed abnormal, and Peeta nodded. "He is of the ancient folk."

"Yes."

Peeta grinned. "He showed me that day, in the cave."

I rebuked some at the implication. My mind ran through everything that had happened to me concerning caves and Peeta, and inevitably, rooted into my most unforgettable memories was our first Hunger Games. I wondered what he was shown; the kisses, the deceit, my head wound? Even now, after all these years, and all that had happened (and even now, lying naked, with this man), I still felt stunted as easily as a girl at that memory.

"Now that is a memory to treasure," Peeta said, kissing my neck, my shoulder, his voice light and teasing. "Our first kiss.. you, the girl I'd been in love with since I was five taking care of me. All those things I said by accident, fevered induced. Heating each other up from the cold and rain with our bodies..."

"Careers howling for our blood." I did not smile, for my mind had jumped then to that moment later, when Peeta had lost his leg to the mutts, and of the war, Mockingjays, and District 13..

Peeta was looking at me, his smile gone, but his face still relaxed. "They aren't here now."

"But they—"

"Shush," he said. "That does not matter. Not here, not now."

"Peeta," I said, my voice cracking, trying to sound more in control, but he gathered me tight, and held me, and I knew then that whatever I said, whoever else I had loved or lost, whatever other life we were doomed to live, this man would always be... would, quite simply, always be.

Later, after we had made love again, I looked over Peeta's shoulder, and laughed.

"What?" he said, rolling off me. Then he jumped, using his hands to cover his nakedness, and I laughed the harder, not bothering to hide mine.

We were encircled by a type of mutt I knew well, a small, white bodied creature with copper colored fur, and the brightest most brilliant grey-blue-gold eyes. They nosed the grass and peered at me; they knew me well, from hunting, I had always shared my entrails with them; it was not as if they knew I was otherwise preoccupied. "They are happy," I said. Then I added, and where these words came from I have no idea, "They are our children."

I waited to see Peeta grow anguished at the mention of our long dead children, but he did not.

"Then they should be in bed," was all he said, tartly, and I rolled over, my sides aching now with my laughter, and the mutts scattered at the loud sound.

And then, yet more time later, Peeta had decided to ignore the forest about us, with its strange creatures, and began a long, slow, sensual stroking of my body. I loved it. I sighed, and arched my back, and begged him never to stop.

"Will you do something for me?" he said.

"Anything," I groaned, "so long as you complete here what you have begun."

He lowered his head, and ran his tongue about one of my nipples, and I clutched at his hair, and thought I would die with the strength of my wanting. "Next time," he whispered, lifting his mouth momentarily, agonizingly, "will you promise not to give up on me? Make me remember. I forget.. every time.. and I don't want to, Katniss. You watch over this land, will you shelter me, too?"

"Peeta..."

"Promise this to me."

"Yes. You did not have to ask."

He grinned, moving his head just enough that his tongue could now draw the other nipple deep into his mouth. For a long moment there was no talk, only the soft sound of my moan, and his heavy breathing.

"Then my future is assured," he whispered, and he moved, pivoting across my body, burying his hands tight in my hair, his face only inches from mine. "The mournful creature showed me many things." His body was moving over mine now, and my legs, of their own accord, parted under his weight.

"Yes?" I whispered.

"Of how we are cursed."

"As everyone."

He smiled, but only briefly, his body moving very slowly, very teasingly atop mine.

I wriggled, trying to tempt him inside, but for the moment he stayed a breath away from entering me. "The creature showed me more than the past."

"Yes?" That was more moan than inquiry.

"How Snow one day, too, will be reborn."

"Yes." Then I had a sudden, horrible thought that I could hardly bear, and my body fell still beneath his. "Peeta–"

He kissed the tip of my nose. "I know," he said. "I know that he'll use me, like he did before. And I know how it will damage me, and I am content enough with that. What I am upset about is you. Don't let it hurt you, okay?" He was staring at me, boring his eyes straight in mine. "It won't be me. Kill me when he uses me. Okay? You couldn't kill me when I was the baker's son and you were from the Seam, but when this time comes... kill me."

"What if you don't come back?" I breathed.

"Promise this."

"I just promised you I'd shelter you!" I objected, whispering harshly, rather than shouting. I tried to fight the natural scowl which took over my expression, but it won.

"Yes, me," he said. "Not when I'm Snow's creature."

"How will I know the difference?"

"I'll be howling for your blood."

The conversation was depressing me. "That isn't until–"

"I know," said Peeta, smiling again, the skin around his eyes crinkling slightly. "This is a long path you travel, my love. A long way to go."

"I can han–."

"Real or not real.." I was silent. His smile died, and the sadness in it was stunning. "You killed yourself?"

I was shocked for a moment, particularly irritated at the mutt he'd talked to. What had he seen? I knew my own extent of what would've been shown.. but.. "Peeta.."

"You couldn't handle that, could you?"

"I.." was out of words. Then I found my old spunk and snapped, "The kids were grown and gone. _You_ were gone. Haymitch.. Gale... Primrose.. everyone.. I was old and useless..."

Peeta dropped his face to the side and nuzzled my neck. I stared passed his head. "We would have waited. We were waiting for you. You didn't have to hurry.."

I bit into my cheek, and my hands moved on their own accord across his back and around his shoulders, tracing lines into his new skin, unscarred, and unburned. "I needed you. I didn't think you were impatient. _I_ was."

I felt the smile against my neck before he pulled back to look me in the face and knew he'd let it go; it was the past after all, and considering how many times we'd had this same conversation in a more recent past, he couldn't hold onto the grudge.

"Oh, sweet odds, now I've made you cry!"

I started to laugh through my tears, and, determining that I'd had enough of his teasing, I pulled him down and into me. "At least you will never hear me say 'No!' again!"

"I love you." And we made love well until dark.


	7. 07: Rain

A/N: I'm beginning to wonder if you guys are still enjoying these or if they just make you laugh at the ridiculousness. Enjoy. -Taryn

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07: Rain

She wouldn't move.

It was not so much as that she refused, it was that she didn't think she had any other place to be. Nothing save the very spot she laid on seemed important. There was nothing compelling her elsewhere and no one who could sway her determination.

Katniss, quite simply, couldn't–wouldn't–pull herself up from the floor of her shower.

She lay there, half curled up around herself, arms hugging loosely to her knees, hair just stains of black ink that withered and slithered against the white, polished plastic, flowing with the rivulets of water that washed over her olive toned flesh. Sometimes her eyes would be open, though they were better off closed, because she didn't see anything, and she only heard the rhythmic beat of the rain falling over her.

Many had tried to sway her. First, since neither Peeta nor Haymitch dared enter the bathroom, in fear of offending her or getting themselves in a sticky situation, they made a desperate call; Effie. She raved at Katniss, about proper living and the amount of time a real lady should spend in a shower. When things got desperate, Effie even poked her head inside the shower, peering around the glass door. But as much as everyone knew Katniss cared for manners and etiquette, she didn't even blink, nor stir at Effie's encouragements, or flurried, frustrated lectures.

Their calls got a little more desperate. Johanna wasn't very enthused about the situation, it being water that Katniss clung to and so she narrowed her eyes at Peeta as they stood outside the bathroom door and he filled her in on what was going on. "You mean to tell me that lazy, no good, friend of mine is just laying there, underneath the shower, and _I'm_ the one that can get her out?" Johanna voiced, suspiciously. "Is this some sort of test to get over my fear of water? Because I'm already through with that." She peered into the bathroom, where the sound of the rushing, pitter-patter could be heard. "How do I win? Do I just jump in there with her? Or do I have to do something a little more extreme, to prove to you that, really, I'm not afraid?"

Once she was set straight by Peeta, about it really being the stubborn Katniss, inconveniently in the shower, hiding from the world, and refusing to get up, Jo plopped herself down on the floor next to the glass door and stared at the Mockingjay very steadily, for what seemed a rather long time.

Then she said, "There's nothing I can do, to get you out, is there?"

Katniss' previously vacant, non-focused eyes flickered and centered on the woman for a heartbeat. She made a noise, that was neither a hum nor grunt, but it was something. Afterward, her eyes closed and her arms contorted slightly, tightening her knees to her breasts.

Johanna shrugged at the concerned Peeta waiting downstairs and was out of the district by that night.

Haymitch complained all the next day at Peeta, who stood outside the door, slumped against the wood, hand protectively hovering over the handle. "No," Peeta said, more than once, "I'm not gonna let you in there."

"And why not?" Haymitch demanded, slurring. A little more than drunk. "If I don't physically drag her out of there, who will? She sure as hell won't do it. It's been four days and she hasn't eaten a thing that Effie or Johanna brought her."

"You're not going to just go in there and rip her out," Peeta said, wavering a little in his worry about the food. Then he hardened himself, _he was doing the right thing. _"It's not just a physical thing, Haymitch. You can't just pull her out of the shower, because mentally she'll still want to be there, and _will_ be there, to her. I want Katniss back, not the girl you hauled across the tiles, dressed, and forced food into her mouth."

"Then that's too bad," Haymitch snapped and more than staggered his way down the stairs, fumbling twice before he managed to slam the door efficiently. He didn't come back.

On the sixth day, Peeta had been making Greasy Sae bring Katniss food, though usually the old woman would shake her head sadly, bringing out mostly untouched plates, except for a nibble there, or a half bite here. He started to flip through other people he knew that could come; Annie, her mother.. but the list ended there. He knew that Annie wouldn't–couldn't–come, and her help, if there was any at all, would be feeble. Bringing her mother might only make Katniss want to stay in there longer.

He thought of Gale, but decided he would rather let Haymitch have a go at her first.

When the seventh day came and went and he could not think of one other person who might have had an influence on Katniss, he knew it was his turn to go. His reluctance to go before a week had passed sprouted from general respect and gentlemen rule, as well as a pit of paranoia. Peeta had thought that Katniss chose that specific hiding spot, because it would deter him, most of all. Perhaps she figured the bed wasn't a good place to hide, because Peeta could get to her there, as well as the couch or forest, and so she was reduced to the shower; something she must have figured Peeta would at least stall before jumping into. Peeta couldn't decide if she was trying to send a message, without triggering his.. darker moments, and that she feared him so much, that she could not simply speak out about her wish to separate.

Part of him knew they were ridiculous and frivolous theories, but all the same, his wish for her to better and for her well-being, was higher than his own concerns or insecurities. He had hesitated, merely in concern for her wishes, her modesty, for seven days, so when he woke up on the eighth, he walked straight to that bathroom door, opened it, and slipped inside, with no amount of vacillation.

"Katniss," he started, closing the door behind himself, "I made you breakfast."

She didn't stir, eye closed, the water falling like rain steadily over her.

"Katniss," Peeta tempted, walking forward, eyes only for her face. "I.." but he had nothing to say. What? Well, if you get up now, I'm sure.. what? What was it Katniss wanted? Nothing. Nothing, save to lay in that shower, undisturbed.

There was only what he wanted; for her to get up.

"Katniss," Peeta murmured, reaching the shower and sinking to his knees in front of the glass, to be level with her. "Katniss, I need you, please. Get up."

She was listening, at least, because he saw her fists tighten.

"I can't sleep alone."

"I need you, Katniss."

"Get up, for me."

"Get up for yourself.. eat something."

Peeta sighed when she gave no further sign of hearing him. He situated himself crossed-legged on the tiles and fixated his eyes on her closed lids. "You don't have to get out.." he whispered, "but will you at least talk to me, or look at me.. or_ move?_"

In response Katniss made a noise, and her eyes opened momentarily to stare up at Peeta, whose face broke into a timid smile, an encouragement. Unfortunately, she merely gave her shoulders a shrug of complaint and rolled over in a lumberously slow way, her back to him.

Peeta stared at the few freckles that danced down from her shoulders for several silence moments.

"Do you want me to leave?" he asked, voice barely loud enough to be heard above the hiss of the shower. He lifted a hand and laid it against the glass, and for a moment he felt a memory sink its claws through his mind and he was pulled into another time, another place. Around him he heard others, like Beetee and Johanna, and he saw the forest, and he saw Katniss' distressed face just in front of his, alive and flushed and breathless as she pressed her hand against his, but he couldn't feel her hand–something was between them.

Just as quickly the memory came, it was gone. He searched his mind frantically for anything shiny or of bad thoughts, but there was none; not now, at least. Which only furthered his feelings of leaving.

"Katniss.. do you want me to leave?"

"Forever?" came a small, hoarse croak, and Peeta's heart leapt into his throat.

"Forever," he confirmed.

There was silence again, as he wondered what her face was showing. Her shoulders were tense, and she shifted around a bit, before she spoke again, "Don't leave."

"Will you get out?" he asked her, relief flooding his voice.

…"No."

"Then why should I stay? If I'm suppose to stand back and watch you starve yourself, then I won't stay. I _can't_. I can't sit around and wonder if you're ever going to speak again, or if your eyes will open, or.." he broke off in his rant when Katniss made a sharp sound.

It was only when she shifted an arm and pulled a hand over her face, that he realized she was sobbing.

Panic sank its teeth into his heart, at the sound, at the sight of her shaking shoulders. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her cry. They'd been living together for months, shared beds and nightmares, but he'd yet to see her cry... and no matter how hard he searched his mind, no memory that was safe, consisted of her tears.

He found himself pressing himself closer to the shower, wanting to touch her and soothe her.

"Katniss, what's the matter? Why.. was it something I said? I'm sorry."

She merely gave a few jerking shakes of her head, hair slapping against her back and the shower floor.

"Can.. I.." Peeta started, uncertain of how to phrase..

Katniss made a gasp of sorts, letting her hand fall away from her face, as she nodded, bobbing her head in a sloppy, incoherent order. Peeta didn't hesitate. He pulled the shower open and crawled inside, uncaring of his clothes, as he reached for her and ran his hand through her tangled, dripping hair.

"Katniss!" he exclaimed. "This water's freezing!" He gathered her to him, shuddering at the icy rain that fell over him, devouring his dry clothes and he didn't allow the fact that she was naked, pressed into his chest, sitting in his lap, wet and willing, perturb him.

He stroked her hair and ran the other hand up and down her bare back, as she buried her face into the collar of his shirt. She was still limp, no life in her except for the wretched sobs that shook her whole form. "I'm sorry," she breathed through the shaking, and he realized she was shivering, too, cold lips pressing into the hot sink of his neck, moving as she spoke, "Don't leave... please.."

"I promise," he said, pressing his cheek into her hair, he pulled her tighter into him, "I won't leave."

"Stay here, with me," she said.

"Always."

And it seemed that brought some energy back to her, because her hands suddenly moved, lifting to his stomach and side, twisting her shaking, pale fingers into the wet fabric of his shirt, until he felt the bite of her fingernails. Katniss pushed her face deeper into his collarbone and whisked her eyes shut, eyelashes tickling his goose-flesh covered skin. "Right, _here_."

Peeta thought about it, already beginning to grow uncomfortable in the cold and the wet. "I'll stay.." he started, thinking, trying to step carefully, "..I'd stay, as long as it took for you to find it in yourself to get out.. you know I would.. but.." Katniss deflated against him. "But, I like eating, and taking my medicine and sleeping in a bed."

"You hate medicine," she whispered, starting to control her sobbing, but still shivering. She drew him closer, using her hands, and turned her face so that her lips touched his jaw, in an icy kiss, as a plea.

Peeta leaned into the back wall of the shower, attempting to pull his chest away from her bare breasts, and hoping to pry distance between their stomachs, staunched together. He closed his eyes as his face tipped back, and the water blinded him. Katniss merely curled closer, and pulled him deeper into her.

"Stay," she whispered. "Stay with me. Here."

He felt as though she was trying to pull him into her pit of despair. She wanted a companion in her pain, in her immobility. Katniss wanted to lay in the shower forever, underneath the rain of ice, and all he had managed to do was convince her she didn't want to do it alone. Peeta knew he couldn't give in, no matter how much he loved holding her in his arms, or how nice, yet strange, it was to hear her beg him to stay with her. If he stayed, she might succeed in pulling him into a bad place, that he didn't want to be, and influence him in a direction that recovery frowned upon. Next thing he would know, it might just be _him_ and Katniss, that Haymitch dragged out the shower by an arm or fistful of hair.

He couldn't condone to this bad habit, and become a part of it. Perhaps that's why it was so tempting to accept to it; the fact that he wasn't allowed, and that it veered off the doctor's specific day-to-day schedule.

Peeta knew that he couldn't stay, and, she wouldn't move.

Peeta loosened his hold on her, and dropped his face forward, twisting away from her. It tore at his heart to do it, to see her grey eyes land on his face as he withdrew from her, hurt and dull, as she sank into the shower floor again, reaching for her knees.

Almost on a split regret, his hand shot out again and caught one of her wrists and he pulled it to his lips.

"Stay with _me_," he said, _for once. _"_Come_ with me, stay with _me_.."

Katniss wavered, eyes uncertain, lost. She didn't seem herself, didn't look like herself, pale and skin softened by the water. They focused on his piercing gaze, as though she didn't understand what he was asking her, then they dropped to her hand, knuckles pressed into his lips, feeling his hot breath. They closed slowly, tightly, unbearably. "Where?"

"With me, everywhere."

She didn't understand, her head didn't grasp his plea, his compromise, his need. "Where?" she said, voice a little stronger, a little irritated, agitated by the fact that he wasn't answering her directly.

Peeta felt a smile ghost across his face, happy to hear that, to know Katniss was still in there, somewhere. Her eyes flew open when she felt the tug of his lips against her skin; they narrowed some, wondering why he was smiling. _"Where?" _she snapped softly.

His smile widened, and her hand turned into a fist against his face, ripping from his hold, folding itself protectively against her chest with the other. She hadn't understood that was him asking her never to leave him, that he wanted her to be his forever, she couldn't see, couldn't _understand_ the underlining sentiment, so he decided to leave it out, and answer her in the way she wanted; literally, logically and straight forward. "Come to the bedroom, so we can dry you off and dress you and then come to me into the kitchen, and I'll make you hot chocolate and fresh, hot cheese buns.."

"I don't.." she faltered.

"You don't?"

"I don't think I _can,_" she whispered, screwing her eyes shut, and preparing to turn over, to put her back to him, but he caught her gently by the shoulder.

"That's what I'm here for," Peeta said. "To help you when you need it. To do the things you can't."

Katniss said and did nothing, stiff underneath his hand, and he realized this was her, submitting, allowing it. That silent, unmoving behavior was her pleading him for his help, and Peeta had never hesitated to help her before.

"Come on," he whispered, leaning forward momentarily, to gather her against his chest and ghost his lips over her cheek, "let's get you into something dry."

The moment he stood and walked across the bathroom, Katniss turned into him, arms slinging around his neck, and clinging. "Real or not real.." she started... "we were young, in school, still, and it was raining... and you picked up my papers.."

Peeta was baffled, running through memories of rain. "Real.. I think.."

"And you had soft hands," she sighed.

"I did?"

Katniss hummed in response, and Peeta didn't care if that was true or not, he was just glad he'd finally pulled Katniss from her stupor, that she was speaking and moving and that he wasn't ever going to hesitate _ever_ again.


	8. 08: Submissive

A/N: WARNING SEXUAL CONTENT. You can laugh. I laughed the whole time I was writing this. I faceplamed at my last sentence, the cheesy-ness, the awkward ending, that was the only line I could think of. All in all this is just some good ol Everlark smut. A bit kinky. I warn you, again, caution. They might not be in character, or maybe a little, considering their age, or eh. I'm not much of a smut writer, but if you guys like this, review and let me know. -Taryn

Oh, and typos, probably. Sorry. Thank you for reading.

* * *

08: Submissive

The first time that it happened, it was because Peeta wasn't sure he could control himself.

Those pieces of him that were stained by the Capitol's fingers had reached out at him so suddenly, so sharply, as he moved over Katniss, sweetly, slowly, that he was almost certain he couldn't keep his hands away from her throat.

So he let go, of himself, of her, and of thought. He rolled off of her mid-thrust, hands clenched into fists at his side, and he averted his face from his wife completely. Katniss was so stunted by his withdrawal, so disappointed, she hissed at him.

"Where are you _going_?"

He hadn't found it in himself to reply. He thought about it, moving his lips, but pursed them instead.

Katniss rolled to her side, grey eyes mystified and wanting. Her hand fell heavily on his bare chest and ran sensually down his side, gliding slowly to his arousal, but she was stopped short when his own hand shot out and grasped her painfully by the wrist. "No," he said, voice husky, and her eyes narrowed as his piercing blue ones.

"No?"

"I can't.." Peeta struggled, pupils shuddering in the water of his eyes and she saw it. Realization dawned on her face, as his fingers dug deeper into her flesh, and somehow she _wasn't_ frightened. Years had passed since his last episode; they'd had their daughter in those years and throughout the trials of that, she'd learned not to shy when it came to the bed, and he learned that she wasn't made of glass; this specific situation, however, was not something they'd had to figure their way out of before.

Katniss, as always, would pull through, on top, though.

"You can," she decided for him, ripping her hand from his in one jerk. Quickly, Katniss maneuvered, catching the other hand that Peeta flung out, as if to hit her, or push her off the bed, and she brought it down heavily over their heads. She smiled thinly up at him. "I trust you."

_I don't trust you, _his eyes seemed to say as she slid on top of him, her knees closing around his hips. Katniss wondered if he was still with her, or if the other side had won; was she making love to a man that loved her, or thought her a mutt? Somehow, that didn't matter, as she lowered herself against him, hovering above his groin; just far enough away that she could feel the heat of him, and a deep, wide-spread pang spread through her center, yearning for him.

With his hand not pinned, he reached at her, and she thought he'd meant to knead her breasts, but his hand sought to something a little higher, seeking, fingers splayed upward, hot against her chest, still reaching.. and she smiled, when Peeta couldn't get to her throat.

"No," she said, simply, as though scolding a dog, and pulled the hand from her chest to bring it down next to the other one, so that she was leaning over him, arched. Her lips touched him tenderly on the cheek, skimming down his jaw; he caught her lips with his teeth and Katniss broke away, surprised.

She stared at him, her nose almost on his, and slowly, infinitely slowly, she moved her hips in an upward motion, stroking herself against him, their hips jutting together at the end, her nipples just barely dragging against his chest. Katniss shuddered, and Peeta turned his face, twisting it away from hers, his eyes screwed shut. She could feel his hands shaking in hers.

With opportunity opened, Katniss lowered her lips to his cheek, moved down his neck and sucked at the skin beneath his ear. All the while she kept up her lento thrusting, withering on top of Peeta, dragging it out as she put all her weight, hunched, into her fists, that shoved him deeper into the mattress.

An abrupt buck of Peeta's hips made her smile into his neck, and he hissed; in lust or frustration, she didn't know. All she knew was that Peeta turned his face back to hers and he used his chin to shove hers away from his. "No," he said, his eyes almost all black, pupils blown.

"Yes," Katniss insisted, smothering his mouth with hers.

He groaned into her mouth. A protest or an encouragement? The kiss was returned, his lips moving fervently against hers, swollen, slippery. His tongue slid passed her lips, sweetly, slowly, drawing hers out of her mouth, coaxing her closer by arching his back, her breasts heavy on his skin. Peeta pressed her tongue into his teeth and she drew back sharply when he bit down. There was a bright smile on his face when she looked at him, with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

Katniss lurched forward, fractionally, to position herself over him, before sinking down again, a catch in her breath as his groin buried itself into her center. Peeta groaned, tossing his head against the bed, and Katniss dove for his neck, her kisses sloppy and greedy as she rocked above him. Her movements were precise, measured, taunting, even for herself, as all she wanted to do was allow herself to ride him until she saw lights behind her eyes; but she felt Peeta's fingers curl around hers, and the strength in his arms tightened. "No," he barely said, incoherent. "_No_," he groaned, the noise deep in his throat and chest. The way he said it sounded like a beg, though. It sounded like a yes in disguise.

Just as Katniss was about to give into the urge of heedless, frantic groping, Peeta's submissiveness, his inner fight, that had enabled Katniss to pin him, broke and he flipped them so suddenly that the bed didn't quite make up for their momentum.

The blankets were tangled in their legs and tight around her ankles, and she was grateful that it was Peeta whose back hit the floor. She laughed abruptly, as her husband gazed up at her, a little bemused, a piece of startled and uncertain, as though he didn't know how he got there.

His eyes were the most beguiling blue, as he blinked at her; shame came to his face, guilt, too, as his eyes frantically scoped her body curved upward over him, her hands pressed into the floor beside his head, to prop herself up. He was searching for bruises or scratches, she knew.

Katniss lowered her face for what seemed the umpteenth time, to put her lips to his. There was no rejection awaiting her there, only soft lips that melted into her. She sighed into his mouth, his hands moving, timidly, caressing, up her back and to her breasts.

Peeta began to move up against her, his thrusts lento and gentle and drawing sounds from her mouth.

Her hands found his hair, fingernails clawing at his scalp, the blonde curls crushed between her knuckles.

They didn't speak of what had happened later, when they'd moved back to the bed and fell asleep tangled. In the morning and for the next week, there were no words; no matter how many time she'd caught Peeta deep in thought, no doubt trying to figure out a good way to apologize for his more than lack of bed manners, or other nonsense she could only imagine Peeta wanting to say.

The next few times they made love, she could tell Peeta had barred off a piece of himself; there always seemed to be a reserved piece of self-control and sanity to him, as he kissed her and touched her.. and she hated it. She liked to see him unravel before her eyes, to feel the flush of blood in his cheeks, to watch his eyelashes play hypnotic against his cheekbones, his hips jerking not under his control.

So the second time came about; when she had dropped the daughter off at Haymitch's for the afternoon and she made her way toward the bakery Peeta owned. As expected he was working, and somehow just the sight of him, wearing an apron and hands covered in flower, frosting clinging to his nails, made her squirm. She entered the shop, and he looked up, surprised, smiled at her over a costumers head.

Katniss waited against the wall, just next to the front door, arms folded behind her back.

She waited a good long fifteen minutes for the bakery to clear out on its own.

She locked the door behind the last costumer; Peeta was in the back, and hadn't seen.

With both hands Katniss pulled her shirt over her head and then reached around to unhook her bra. Peeta came back into the front room, startled by what she was doing. "Katniss!" he objected, setting aside some pie dishes, and she didn't allow him to speak.

They kissed instead, passionately, the kiss of a man and a woman well used to each other. "Shut up," she said, and latched onto his hair with both hands, using her grip to angle his face more accurately with hers. She spoke against his mouth, "Lift me up." He did, gripping her around the thighs and backside, setting her easily on the counter–"No," she objected, "_hold_ me up."

Peeta grabbed her, hitched her further up in his arms and gripped her tightly with one arm around the waist and another hooked underneath her. She wrapped her legs around his hips.

Against her pants she could feel him rising up to the occasion.

"Take off your clothes."

Peeta set her easily on the counter, in no hesitation, his shirt and pants tossed aside onto the floor. Katniss caught his waist with a leg and pulled him to her again, and his head went for her neck and breasts as she arched out, up into his mouth, hands planted on the counter behind her.

"Pants," she said, breathlessly, and Peeta kissed his way down her stomach. When he reached the button of her pants he toyed with it for a moment, as if thinking and Katniss pinched him behind the ear. The pants were pulled away, the underwear soon following. Peeta didn't hesitate the kiss the newly bare pieces of her; and Katniss didn't give orders, tossing her head toward the ceiling, hand burying in his hair, cheeks soon as warm as her thighs and center. The brush of his cheek on her inner leg made her ache deep in her belly and she cried out when he sank a finger into the mix.

Peeta got eager, rising quickly from her center to her mouth, capturing it in a senseless grapple of lips. He tasted bitter and salty, and she averted her face just a fraction, so that her face nuzzled passed his, lips finding his ear. _-words not for the kiddies' ears-_

"Yes," breathed Peeta, kissing the side of her face, losing some in her hair. Together, they slid to the floor, fluidly, falling into each other at the same time that they sank, and Peeta easily mounted her, brushing a fringe from her forehead, drawing a nipple deep into his mouth. He began to move over her with long, powerful strokes.

Quickly their tempo and passion intensified, and Katniss moaned and twisted, encouraging him in every way she could, and they kissed again, their bodies now so completely entwined, so completely merged, that they seemed but one.

Then she broke the kiss and shifted her legs through his, planting a knee, before she could effectively flip him onto his back. Katniss caught his lip, bit down and put her hand flat against the side of his face. He turned his lips from hers, kissing her fingers. She pinched his lips in turn.

For a moment, she thought Peeta might turn to her, pouting, asking why she was being so mean to him, but he only responded to her roughness by trying to flip them over again; Katniss flattened herself against his body and put all her weight in one central spot, making it harder. Teeth found his collarbone and he stilled in his efforts, hands finding her hips and clutching her there, as her mouth moved lower, tweaking a nipple, running rivets on the muscles of his biceps.

Later, when they lay in a mass of warm skin, slick with their sweat and panting, Peeta found her ear.

"Next time," he whispered, and Katniss felt her heart clench in excitement, knowing there was going to be another session, "I want you to hold my hands above my head again."

Katniss laughed, wheezily, kissing his chin, then his nose, then his ear, replying, "I never knew you liked being submissive."

"Me either."

For the first time in both their lives, they almost thanked the Capitol for the hijacking.


	9. 09: Blame

A/N: Different writing style. I'm trying new ways to write because I'm unsatisfied with how I write.. so tell me what you think. It's kind of sloppier than before, but more feeling. I love feelings, so.. tell me what you get from this. Thanks for reading. Sorry for typos. -Taryn

* * *

09: Blame

He blames _them_.

He hates them so much it hurts. His heart beats with his fury, fast and breathtaking and the air is tight in his throat, grappling to keep him alive. All he wants is to turn time though. To live in his dreams, to get lost to fantasies of a boy who has lost everything.

But he can't.

He can't because of _them_.

They took it all. His memories are nothing but a murky land of shining lies and dark, corrupted shadows, that are like creatures, clinging to him, to his mind, their claws shining silver razors, cutting away the good and spitting in the bad.

Except he knows now. He knows that she's not a mutt. He looks at her and sees the scarlet tears fall from blood-shot eyes, and he knows that she can't be a mutt. Not when she's dying in front of him, so human. So very human as she coughs and hers lips are painted red by her pain.

He blames _them_. All of them. Every single citizen that ever turned their head at the mention of her name, that ever called her their Mockingjay. He blames Panem, and the Capitol, and theirs friends, and their families.

She is weak in his arms, rattling with each breath. But it is her eyes that haunt him the most, so tainted, so corrupted. War did this, the fighting led to this; he warned them, he _warned_ them, he'd shouted at them and begged and pleaded for _her_ to hear the words coming from his mouth. The war would end them. It would ruin them. The world would cry and suffer and they would never survive.

He blames them for making him right. And he hates that he's right. Too right.

_How could they? Why wouldn't they? How could he doubt it?_

There is plague in the land, seeping through the soil, poring from the mouths of moaning children, thin and starving. Blood comes first from the mouth, from the throat, thick and black and congealed. Then the nose, thinner, redder, nonstop. He remembers watching Haymitch bleed for days, a hand pressed to his face, coughing his way through the alcohol. He sits and watches the world die around him and feels guilt twist like a blade pressed into his heart, sinking slowly, with every death.

In the light of the plague, the war ended, because after the nose comes the eyes. The last and final step, of the dying, as the blood slips from the dying pupils of their victim. They weep for their loss, with their own blood; they weep for their loved ones that have already gone, and have given them this sickness. And he watches, silently, despairingly, pulling at his hair in his helplessness.

He warned them, he _did_.

The sickness rolls over the country like waves of a catastrophe. Corruption, twining its black vines through the peoples' bodies. A corset of death, squeezing the victim of the breath of life, stealing their fight, their personalities, rejecting the blood beating in their veins and spewing it from every place it can.

And he _loathes _it when she cries. He's always hated it; somehow he knows this, though he cannot truly remember ever seeing her cry, the memory taken from him. But he still knows he hates it because when she comes to him, in the last few moments, silent drops of blood falling helplessly from grey eyes that stare at him, just as powerless, hopeless, his heart falls to his stomach and his stomach drops through his feet, and he _knows_.

Her hair is tangled, wild, falling from its carefully tied braid. She's in her Mockingjay suit, but it's spattered with blood, and its still warm, and not all hers. Sobs rack out of her mouth, silently, chest shaking. She reaches for him, slumped against the wall of a house long abandoned in the Capitol, and he shrinks away from her at first, seeing the sickness in her. The plague took most of her physical beauty. Her skin is shallow and pocked along her knuckles, and her hair is matted and dull. The only thing that he can see that elicits old memories, old affections are her eyes, grey and hopeless.

_We lost, _they seem to say, _I lost, I failed. I'm dying. _

And the thing that kicks him in the stomach is her words, rasping, broken, _"you win."_

He wins? No. He never wins. He's lost everything; his childhood, his memories, her, the Hunger Games, the cease-fire, his family, his friends, his _sanity_. But he pulls her to him, because he's scared she will collapse, and she cries tears into his shirt, staining the fabric crimson.

He blames _them, _as he begins to cry, too, sinking to the ground with her corpse in his arms. He lays her there, and she is motionless. She is so.. frozen... and he thinks it's wrong, because she used to be so full of life, when she was angry or determined or at the peak of the war when she'd campaigned for the rebels. But that was before. Before Snow allowed the plague loose from the science labs, crawling across his country; watching from his mansion, as his precious city falls victim, first, and the rebel army, that fled, that spread it further, from district to district..

He blames them, for the loss.

And he blames himself _because he warned them,_ because they didn't listen to him.

And he knows he should have tried harder.

He wipes the bloody tears from her cheeks and he kisses her forehead, tasting the sickness, sharp and bitter and _real_. His eyes screw shut. Her last words ever fall heavily on his mind, sinking through the layers of bad, the corruption, and he grasps her again, rips her to him, presses her familiar body against his and cries the harder; because she's right.

She's right, always right. He won; he was right, and wins and she is dead just like he first wanted when they'd met again. But not really. He doesn't want that now. He wants her to suddenly breathe and move and live, and kiss him.

But he can't. And he has no one to blame for that.


	10. 10: Loss

A/N: I know I already published this as a separate story, but oh well. -Taryn

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10: Loss

Panem was at a stand still.

Everyone's heart, weather black or warm or made of ice, was pounding, steadily, deeply. Pulses roared in anxious ears, waiting for the clamoring death sentence. They waited, on their toes, leaning toward their televisions, for that final cannon shot that would confirm what they'd just witnessed.

Katniss was already crying. She knew. She _knew_. She didn't know what was wrong with her as she knelt there in the sand, uncontrolled sobs heaving up from the very pit of her being, threatening to bring her stomach up with their strength. There was a dull ache in her temples, radiating through her head, as she swooned above Peeta's body, the knife still thrust deep between his shoulder blades.

All she could think was that he deserved better than being stabbed in the back.

He deserved _better_.

Her fingers clutched at the boy's curls, cradling his head in her arms, pressing her cheek against his.

His killer laid motionless across from them, an arrow in his eye, blood bubbling from his lips. Gloss had been laughing triumphantly before her bow raised. For what it was worth, she'd not even aimed before she let the arrow fly. Katniss had been lunging toward Peeta, hoping to catch him before he collapsed. Really, she didn't. He only pulled them both to the ground, too heavy, and she threw her bow, savagely away from herself. Furious, thinking fleetingly of President Snow and the Gamemakers, she didn't _care_, if she found herself weaponless when they tried to send yet another wave of horror at her.

It was Rue all over again.

She'd come too late, she'd left his side for one second, and now there was nothing left.

"Peeta, please," she babbled in her hysterics. She knew the country was watching. That President Snow was laughing, and his cruel mirth rang in the back of her mind, taunting her, piercing her heart as sharp as a pick. "Don't die. Don't leave me here."

The answer to her pleas was the _bang _of a cannon and her sobbing harshened.

Their allies stood some way back, too stunned to speak, too appalled to move. Johanna was the first to recover. Cursing under her breath she went stomping around the perimeter of her alliance, an axe in hand, checking for any other Careers. But it seemed they all fled in the face of Katniss' anger, when she broke through the tree line, wielding her bow and inconsolable over the fact that Gloss managed to harm her boy with the bread.

Finnick went to Katniss. He walked carefully toward her from behind, his lips pressed into a thin line. The handsome, smooth panes of his face showed anxious and cautious when he fell beside her, on his knees, resting a hand on her back.

He was shrugged harshly away.

"Katniss.." He paused. "Katniss, we have to move. They need to.. to collect the bodies."

She clutched Peeta's body closer to hers, chest to chest, and her shaking hands found the knife in his back. With a heave, she ripped it free and then flung it away, like the bow. "No," she said, still sobbing occasionally, the sounds gasping and sudden. "They can't have him."

"Katniss.. they'll send him home. To his family."

"_I'm_ his family," she said. One of her hands shifted, running over his face, closing his glazed eyes. They lingered over his pale lips. "They can't have him.."

_..but they already do._

It became clear, rather quickly, that Katniss wasn't moving. Johanna tried dragging her and got a slap, that seemed almost revenge for the time Johanna had been giving the blows. Finnick coaxed with all his charm, and it did nothing. Her allies ended up settling near a tree not too far away, watching her, as she sat vigilant over the corpse.

Hours passed, or maybe only two or three, but nothing (no _thing_) came to remove them from the murder site. Apparently President Snow wanted everyone to see, the long, drawn out image of Katniss clinging to her dead fiance, whose child she was supposedly carrying.

The tears had ended by then, and she was silent, eyes screwed shut. Thinking, but not really thinking coherently. Still, there was something so miserable about her, the air around her thick with her grief.

Abruptly, and to almost everyone's relief, she drew in a breath, as though to speak. Her chest rose slowly, falling rapidly, as her eyes cracked open, raw and red and trained on Peeta's face. Then she took another breath, and it left her, a lot differently.

"Are you, are you,

Coming to the tree?

Where they strung up a man they say murdered three.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree."

Finnick exchanged a glance with Johanna. Heads, that had averted themselves previously, turned back toward the televisions in the homes across Panem. They took in the sight of her crumbling from her knees, onto her backside, a hand tenderly touching Peeta's cheek.

"Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Where the dead man called out for his love to flee.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree."

Her voice rang clear and _sharp_. Distinctive and illegal, but most of all, _uncaring_.

"Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree."

Katniss layed her mouth to Peeta's, momentarily. It was a simple press of cold and chapped lips. A goodbye. Her eyes fluttered closed, then reopened as she drew back, his head slowly slipping from her hands and resting in the sand.

"Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree."

Her voice softened by the end, instead of growing more powerful.. and infinitely lento, Katniss rose to her feet, Peeta sliding from her arms and grasp and _he is lost to her completely_. They have him, but they will not have her, and that is why when she turns her back to him, her face is closed over and cold.


	11. 11: Stranger

11: Stranger

I wake the instant Peeta sits up, his arms slipping away from me, the bed creaking underneath his weight. A hand shoots out and curls around his elbow on instinct. "Where.."

"The baby," he says, and I notice the sound of our scrawling daughter in the distance.

I sit up, wide awake. I don't know how Peeta does it; how he wakes the very moment at her first squeak of upset, how he hears her when he's sleeping, when he's two houses away, when he's at the bakery and I can't get her to calm for the life of myself. Part of me is envious, and the other is irritated at how perfect he is at the task of fathering, but most of all I'm _grateful_.

Leaning back on an elbow, I watch him pull on a shirt and fumble to attach his prosthetic leg, before standing and lumbering tiredly to the hall, yawning and stretching. Once, I might of followed him and stood uselessly behind his shoulder as he rocked and cooed at the bundle in his arms. Now, I know better. I sigh, flop against his side of the bed, and close my eyes; but I won't sleep. I can't sleep when he's not here with me. Especially not when Dani is crying.

So I wait.

I listen and twist futilely in the sheets to find some sort of comfort.

Dani has a strong set of lungs for a sixteen month old girl. In fact, her crying seems to blur into a scream, high and thin, and I sit up, ruffled and miffed by the sound. Usually she quiets instantly when he picks her up. Instead, there is a _thud_, and the shatter of glass, splintering through the air.

"Peeta?" I call out.

The screaming turns louder. I'm on my feet in an instant, uncaring of the lack of pants and the tangled mass of my hair as I slip out into the dark hallway, and stall in horror at the sight of Peeta slumped against the wood, clutching a bleeding scalp, a weak shoulder shoving against the closed door of Dani's room. "There's a man," Peeta says, hurriedly, almost slurred into incoherence. Glimmering dust litters his hair, shards of glass gathered at his feet and scattered around the hall. A lamp; he hit Peeta with a lamp.

I don't know what grips me worse; panic or anger. Either way, I throw myself completely into a mode of such frantics that I shove Peeta away, draw the knife I keep in the draw of the hallway table and wedge it between the door and the frame. The lock doesn't budge, no matter how much I rattle and pry. Turning, I search Peeta's face; he's awake, but bleary, still. "Don't let him leave this way," I snap, breathless, and I streak down the hall, blooding my feet in the glass, throwing myself down the stairs two at a time.

The knife is still in my hand, knuckles white with grip.

Outside the night is bitterly cold. The grass is damp and stiff beneath my slashed feet. Air bites the flesh of my thighs and nose, whipping hair into my face and around, as a wavering, slithering black veil. I know exactly which window is my daughter's, but I'm already too late. Because the man has already dropped to the ground, clutching the screaming child underneath his coat.

I don't even think about it. Perhaps its the Hunger Games that I have underneath my belt, or my experience in the war, or merely because that is _my daughter_ he is taking and that was _my husband_ whom he attacked and that is _my house_ he has infiltrated. Doesn't matter that he's at least twice my size, a whole head taller, and broader in the shoulders than even Peeta; the knife still sinks through his flesh the same as Marvel's spear propelled through Rue's chest.

Dani is a storm of noise, sobbing and screaming and wailing as though she is the one who has been stabbed through a collarbone. The man nearly tosses her aside in his attempt to throw himself at me, into the knife, deeper and closer, his hands at my throat. I'm too preoccupied with trying to catch her, the blanket's edge grasped in my fingers momentarily, before it slips through as if water, and I hear Dani's huff as she hits the cold, hard ground and the _sound_ of _that_ knocks me breathless with hurt, with fury, with the want to cry. The splotched green, purple marks are already forming across her flawless downy skin, her screams turn from ones of fear and uncertainty, to _pain_.

My anger fuels my strength. The man drags us both to the ground, and I roll us away from Dani, choking for breath, his fingers tight on my throat. I think of Peeta, because he's done this to me, too, years and years ago, but there is something much more cruel about the way the stranger is jerking my face violently back and forth, whipping my hair into my cheeks and eyes.

Two hands grasp me tightly by the waist, lift me into the air, and set me down in the grass; I am gasping, eyes streaming. Vision blurry, the moonlight dim, I can hardly see the figures of Peeta and the man, all curled fists and knees and jerking movements for control.

Clutching my aching neck, I scramble to my daughter, still in the grass. I pull her to my chest and it is not close enough. Warm, wet tears soak into the skin of my neck. My hand fits around the back of her head, fingers sifting through her silky black tuft, my cheek pressed hard against her salty one. I stand, stumbling, and I watch frantically as Peeta grasps the stranger by the hair, underneath the black mask, and slams it back against the ground.

But the head wound takes its toll on Peeta; he is not so fast as he should be, not so clearheaded. The stranger elbows Peeta's face and he turns away, spitting blood. I search the area around us; the night is empty, obsolete, and I want to run, to place Dani somewhere safe, but I can't tear my eyes off Peeta, can't leave him here. _What if he dies while I'm away? _The thought is ice in my chest, tight in my throat. I want to scream with my daughter; fall to my knees and keen and lose it.

Except that is not me. I've been here before, in these situations. Where my loved ones are threatened and death is a presence close and promising. Backing away, to the porch, I find the cushioned chair, tugging the cushion off and onto the safer level of the ground, and for one heartbeat, I clutch Dani painfully close, before setting her gently on the soft green pillow, tangled in her wet blankets. I leave her there.

I find the bloodied knife a few feet away from the struggling figures of Peeta and the stranger. Its still warm, running crimson over my fingers. I pace closer to them. Back in the woods, safe inside a water-proof cover, is my bow. I wish for it. So simple, if I could merely draw an arrow, aim, and loose the point into the man's heart. I would not miss, no matter which way they struggled.

But I must make do with the knife.

I wait until the man has Peeta pinned against the earth to lunge forward and force the blade to the hilt into the stranger's back. He goes still, stiffens for a moment, twists away from the weight of me pressed into his spine. Then Peeta throws him to the side, the blood leaking down the man's sides and into Peeta's clothes. I rip the knife free, swinging it down again, into the man's abdomen. He groans and moves a feeble hand to my shoulder. Then I stab him again. And again, and again, until blood lashes up both my arms, drips from my nightshirt, and flecks my jaw.

Peeta waits behind me, cradling and soothing our daughter. He does not frown at my savage show, doesn't grab my shoulders and whisper mercy into my ear, does not disapprove. So I turn to him and the knife falls from my stiff and frozen fingers, and I throw myself into his chest, Dani safe between us.

I kiss her face, then his. The weight of his arm around me and of Dani resting on my chest is solid and real and I kiss Peeta deeply on the mouth, tasting the reality there. Until the few tears on my own face are whipped away by his shirt, the same as Dani's.

After moments of reveling in relief, I begin to breathe properly again. Start to feel just how cold it is outside, just how ridiculous we look; blood covered, bedraggled, a dead man in our front yard. At the remembrance of him, I hiss and turn back to the stranger. I eye him. In the night, he is just a slumped dark shape in my front yard, not the hateful man whom tried to steal my daughter. Who deserved his death. I don't pause for guilt, but skip right to a need to know who the man is.

"I'll get the porch light," Peeta whispers at my side. He staggers his way to the front door, that is hanging wide open, and flicks the switch. For a moment, I'm completely blinded, turning away, blinking rapidly.. then my vision clears.

I stoop to pick up the knife, then move skittishly forward. There is still a mask over the man's face. I crouch beside the corpse, working the fabric sticky with blood, slowly, inch by inch, off the man's face.

White blonde hair, loose and shaggy, with ghostly pale, blood-shot blue eyes. His face is boyish, _young_, no older than me or Peeta. I don't know him. Peeta shakes his head when I look up for his own assessment. We don't know him. I use the knife to rip open the man's thick clothing, and there are no signs of tattoos or designs that might suggest he is a Capitol citizen. He is extraordinarily plain. Pockets empty, wrists and fingers clear of watches and rings, and I can't think of any reason he would want to take Dani from us.

Was he payed to do it? Was it his own personal decision? Was it because of me? Because I was the Mockingjay? Of that, I feel certain. There is no other reason. It couldn't have been our house by coincidence; everyone knows where Katniss Mellark lives, where her baby and husband live, right beside her. It wasn't a baby he wanted, it was _my baby_.

But why? And I can't answer that.

I know there is a mess to clean up. I'm not sure entirely where to go to tell someone about this. The new Justice Building might be the first place to go, but I don't dare go too far, so late, and I know exactly who I want to turn to in this haphazard situation. Haymitch lives right across the street, which is a relief, and I wonder if he was too drunk to hear the screaming and the fighting.

Peeta and Dani stick close to me. I can't let them out of my sight so soon. I don't think I'll let him put her down again, ever, if I had a choice on that. Inside Haymitch's house, it's dark and cool, so I go around flicking on the lights, staining the flips with red. The knife is still in my fist and I place it carefully on the kitchen counter, before I fill up a nearby container with water in the sink. Peeta sits exhaustively at the table.

"How's your head?" I ask.

"Fine." Peeta strokes Dani's with infinite care. "I saw him drop her."

I wince. "Yes."

"Should we take her to the hospital?"

"Both of you are going." I haul the water in one hand and pick up the knife once more in the other. Haymitch is passed out on the coach. He wakes with a jerk at the dump of the water over his face, sputtering and swinging out his own knife. I block the blow easily.

Haymitch looks at first as though he wants to snap at me, but his eyes widen and darken in the instant he takes me in. The blood jumps out starkly on the white of my shirt. "Forgot your pants, did you?" he finally asks, pushing himself up into the sitting position.

I don't dwell on his sarcasm. Modesty is beyond me at this point. "He tried to take her."

Haymitch knows exactly which 'her' I'm speaking about. "Did he.."

"He didn't get far. He's in the yard now."

"And Dandelion?"

"With Peeta, in the kitchen. I'm taking them to the hospital. I just need you to take care of the Justice Building for me. I don't want to.." _I don't want to deal with them, with the government. _But I know I must. That it has to be reported. That they are the only ones who will be able to tell me who the man is.

"Alright." Haymitch sighs, rubs at his face, is hungover. He overlooks me again, lingering on the knife in my hand. "Clean yourself up before you go anywhere. Make this easier for me, yeah?"

_Not a chance._ But I do pull on some pants before I throw my father's ancient hunting jacket around my gory shirt and I tug my hair into a messy knot to the side. Dani and Peeta don't need to be changed. I rub at the blood dripping down his chin from his mouth as we walk out of the Victor's Village.

He kisses my fingers, uses his free hand to ghost over my neck. A look of remorse is there. "I'm sorry. I should have pulled you off him sooner." I wonder if he thinks I can only remember the time in which he'd been the one to choke me. His touch does remind me of Gale, afterward, in the hospital, though. I close my eyes. If I called Gale, would he help me find out who that man was, and whom he might of worked for?

"It's alright," I answer eventually. "I'm fine. You're fine. We'll all be fine."

Peeta opens his mouth, as though to speak, but stops himself at the last second.

I know exactly what he wanted to say. _What if there's another one? What if it never ends? What if they kill her next time? _We won't be fine then. Nothing will be fine after that. I bury my side against his, and touch my daughter's face gently. "We'll be fine," I say, again. "We'll survive."

Peeta whispers his reply; "We always do."


End file.
